The Orielles - Only You Left
When The Orielles walked onto the stage at Manchester’s Stoller Hall on 7th October 2022, they did so with a palpable reverence for the storied concert hall, stylishly embracing the formality of their surroundings. Their set marked a distinct departure from the venue’s usual programming, which typically features a rotating cast of classical, jazz and folk performers. Yet, the band’s poised display, buoyed by the enchanting embellishments of The Northern Session Collective Orchestra, reaffirmed their compositional prowess and, in turn, their right to perform in such a distinguished space. As a fan, the evening felt like a watershed moment in their evolution, a signal that they had entered a bold new era.
The occasion coincided with the release of Tableau, their third full-length studio album and perhaps their most ambitious project to date, a synth-laden exploration of electronic textures and another example of their ever-evolving sound, following previous forays into disco and post-punk on Disco Volador and their debut album Silver Dollar Moment. The performance proved a triumphant display of their collective musicality and a marker of just how far they had come.
Now, regarded as seasoned figures within the UK scene, the band return once again with the announcement of a brand-new album, Only You Left, and the release of its lead single, “Three Halves,” an eyebrow-raising impossibility that proves the trio still have plenty of surprises up their sleeves.
“I remember when we played it to everyone, they said that had to be the first single because it just slams in like a car crash”
“We just love the controversial wildcard single,” explains guitarist Henry Carlyle, as we discuss the sludgy, metal-inspired track. A radical reintroduction following their recent flirtations with electronica, It’s a fitting opening statement from a band whose taste for the unexpected has been evident since their debut single, “Sugar Tastes Like Salt,” an eight-minute post-punk epic that first showcased their fearless approach to sound and structure. In short, The Orielles have always enjoyed confounding expectations.
On their upcoming album, they once again take their trademark contrarian approach, setting themselves aside from both the wider scene and their own back catalogue. With its interplay of light and shade, “Three Halves” serves as a meditation on the dissonance that exists at the heart of Only You Left, where wood, metal, and the exaggeration of space act as recurring creative motifs. “It’s a good starting point for the record and it was one of the first ones written,” explains Esme, the band’s lead vocalist and bassist. “The title is taken from one of the first concepts and the idea of these impossible contrasts that exist in the music and the lyrics.”
The heavier sound present in the track reflects the influences that were pouring into the band during recording. “I was listening to a lot of metal music and reading about Black Metal theory, which informed how music could be played in such a cathartic way,” Esmé reflects. “I think there was originally this desire to take things in a heavier yet simultaneously lighter direction.” The track keenly demonstrates that duality, its thrashing, Sabbath-style guitar and propulsive drumming balanced delicately against Esmé’s velvet vocals. “I remember when we played it to everyone, they said that had to be the first single because it just slams in like a car crash,” Henry recalls.
Photo Credit: The Orielles by Neelam Khan Vela
The writing process for the new album began in the immediate aftermath of Tableau and their experimental EP The Goyt Method, which saw the band playing with their own back catalogue, chopping up stems to create a series of avant-garde soundscapes. “We started early 2023 in our practice room, just jamming together, which is how we’ve always done things,” Sidonie (drums & vocals) reflects. During this time, the band reacquainted themselves with demoing, a method they had forgone in recent years in favour of their electronic examinations. “We started really extensively recording everything we were doing,” she continues. “We kept returning to ideas, developing and expanding them more than we’ve ever done in the past.”
After this initial period, the band had amassed a small collection of material they wanted to take into the studio. Recording would take place across two locations, Hamburg and the Greek island of Hydra. Both places carry the heavy weight of musical history; Hamburg, where The Beatles cut their teeth, and Hydra, the creative haven that fed much of Leonard Cohen’s most inspired songwriting. Now, they would serve as twin launchpads for The Orielles latest evolution.
In Hamburg, the band approached their time in the studio with what Esmé describes as “an almost scientific mindset,” working meticulously to lay the foundations for several tracks. Using the studio’s rich array of equipment to their advantage, they were able to experiment with textures and tones before solidifying their concepts. “There were a lot more options in terms of how to record stuff, how to set stuff up, it was a lot of fun playing around with that,” Henry recalls.
“It’s an album we could only have made at this point where we all felt confident enough in our own abilities”
Recording in this space allowed the band to settle on a few sonic ideas that would eventually set the tone for the rest of the project. “Songs became very much categorised into two spaces,” Henry explains. The band found their writing existed in the tension between what they described as metal and wood. “By the end of recording, everything we were doing was tying these two contrasting vibes together,” he says.
During this time, they managed to cultivate a sound radically at odds with their previous releases, perfectly exemplified by their new single. The synths were packed away and the trio’s analogue interplay came to form the foundations of the record. “The music is a lot more naked,” Esmé says. “It’s an album we could only have made at this point where we all felt confident enough in our own abilities.”
Following their time in Hamburg, the trio headed to Hydra alongside long-time collaborator Joel Anthony Patchett to apply further embellishments to the bones laid down in Germany. “The things that came out of the Hydra sessions were much more sparse,” Sidonie explains. The open, airy nature of The Old Carpet Factory, where the band recorded, encouraged a newfound restraint. “In the studio, when it came to adornments, everything felt like too much, so we just left it,” Henry suggests.
Despite the apparent shift in sound exemplified by “Three Halves,” The Orielles continue to explore the same fascination with contrast that defined Tableau. On that record, they toyed with the interplay between electronic experimentation and lush orchestral arrangements; here, they find new ground in the tension between the organic and the industrial, the heavy and the delicate. Once again, they’re pushing boundaries in pursuit of their art, a theme which has been a constant thread throughout their career and one for which they remain, in many ways, criminally underrated.
Yet, for The Orielles, acclaim has never been the driving force. “The reason I love doing this has never been to be famous,” Sidonie explains. Instead, their motivation lies in something far more meaningful, “to share cathartic moments together, to share music together, and to share our creativity.”
It’s an ethos that feels like a natural continuation of that night at Stoller Hall, a performance that redefined all their musical possibilities and laid the groundwork for the bold, unflinching phase which they now occupy. In both settings, electronic or analogue, The Orielles remain a band devoted to the art of exploration, forever chasing the new sound.
“Three Halves” by The Orielles is out now via Heavenly Recordings. Only You Left is due for release 13th March 2026.
