Disclosure, self-affirmation and avowal may be the presentation currencies of our time – mystique now seems so very 20th century – but still, it takes courage and conviction for a young band to state their case from the get-go. All the more so if it’s a group of women, who risk accusations of bad faith and superficiality should they choose to develop their artistry or change their image.
Disclosure, self-affirmation and avowal may be the presentation currencies of our time – mystique now seems so very 20th century – but still, it takes courage and conviction for a young band to state their case from the get-go. All the more so if it’s a group of women, who risk accusations of bad faith and superficiality should they choose to develop their artistry or change their image.
If they’ve considered it at all, none of this bothers Brighton four-piece The New Eves, who came together via a regular meet-up of creative women held in the early days after lockdown. Their name is an unambiguous wresting of power from the most enduring of female archetypes, while the title of their debut album packs a note of forewarning in its defiance. They’re hardly the first UK band nourished by community and eager to recast gender roles; but unlike, say, Goat Girl, Dream Wife, Big Joanie, Charmpit or Dream Nails, punk is not The New Eves’ bedrock. Patti Smith is clearly a touchstone but Swedish folk, post-punk, kosmische, art skronk and even musical theatre are in the mix too, with violin, cello and flute augmenting the usual guitar/bass/drums. Also, rather than directly reflecting personal experience, their songs borrow from mythology, folklore (both centuries-old and contemporary) and neo-Romantic poetry to present their definition of “womanhood”, air their sense of wonder at the cosmos and consider their place in it.
Written in Brighton and during a residency at The Cornish Bank in Falmouth, The New Eve Is Rising was co-produced by the band with Jack Ogborne (of Bingo Fury) and Joe Jones. It follows a trio of singles, notably their debut of 2023, the double A-side “Mother”/“Original Sin”, which gives religious doctrine, internalised guilt and the patriarchy short shrift while asserting that “the serpent is your ally/Your witness is the sky/And every woman is your sister/And we whisper, ‘You’ll be fine, you’ll be just fine’”. As calling cards go it could hardly have been more emphatic, and this full-length follows through. It opens with the mournful saw of a cello, which introduces the band’s manifesto. Written and recited by Nina Winder-Lind, “The New Eve” is a poem cast as “a glorious battle cry” against a high-tension backdrop that builds to a piano-hammered, post-punk peak before suddenly slamming on the brakes. “The New Eve has autonomy over her soul and her body,” intones Winder-Lind. “The New Eve has learned to scream, to stand straight, to sing, to speak.”
A feminist reframing of “The Highwayman”, Alfred Noyes’ poem from 1906, follows, turning Bess’s role from one of tragic self-sacrifice to heroic self-defence, over a low-lying, loose gallop of a tune that recalls The Fall’s “Cruiser’s Creek” but adds shredded violin and a skronky guitar workout from Violet Farrer. Very different is “Cow Song”: over the course of more than six minutes it shifts between an agreeably elephantine lumber and a furious tumult of strings and drums, adding hypnotic vocal harmonies (inspired by the ancient Nordic practice of kulning) and a courtly outro.
The cosmic focus of “Circles” calls into service modern chamber music, Patti Smith’s early punk poeticism and ’70s no-wave, while the mood shifts again in the heavily rhythmic and chorally fulsome “Astrolabe”, which references “rattlesnakes and widow spiders” and Bonnie & Clyde in its tale of a romance determined by the stars. The set closes with “Volcano”, an eight-and-a-half-minute fusion of mystical folk and Horses-adjacent punk threaded with flute and vocal harmonies, which builds from reverie to incantatory whirl, electric violin stoking its fire. “There’s no forgiving and there’s no sinning,” it advises. “No thought is as big as what you see/Let it bleed/Set it free.”
Liberation – of body, mind and spirit, both individually and collectively – is The New Eves’ focus, but these darkly energised songs are celebratory, too. All four band members are credited as composer, lyricist and producer on every track and their collective creativity sparks and fizzes throughout. The New Eve Is Rising is a confident, adventurous debut, intuitive yet purposeful and full of reinvention’s promise. May the road rise with them.
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