Folly Group Coming Through With The Energy

January 9, 2024 AfrosInThaCity

This Friday, January 12 marks the arrival of UK experimental post-punk darlings Folly Group's highly anticipated debut album, Down There!, to be released via So Young Records.

Fresh off the heels of an acclaimed 2021 debut EP Awake And Hungry and last year's Human And Kind (which received a perfect 5-star review from DORK, and a glowing 4-stars from DIY), Folly Group's long-awaited debut was introduced last year with three singles — "Strange Neighbour," "Big Ground," and "I'll Do What I Can." With an approving nod to their relentless avoidance of genre convention and stunning union of electronic and post-punk elements, each single was met with praise from outlets such as NME, DIY, DORK, The Line Of Best Fit, God Is In The TV, Beats Per Minute, Upset, and more.

Today, the band further celebrates their forthcoming record's arrival with one last single, "Pressure Pad." Their newest cut, which lyrically discusses the all-consuming power of unconditional love, sees the band combining angular guitar lines with frenetic drumming, and synths reminiscent of 8-bit video games, before the track takes one of the album’s frequent unexpected diversions: this time into a trumpet section. It additionally comes alongside an explosive accompanying music video.

As vocalist/drummer Sean Harper wrote of the track:

"Musically, 'Pressure Pad' is a testament to how far we’ve come as collaborators. Every different kind of remote or in-the-room collaboration we’ve ever found fruitful was involved in creating this Frankenstein’s Monster of a single. Its final version arrived after months of exchanging files, ideas and needless spanners in the works. This is probably the 6th or 7th iteration of this song, and its final form was ultimately dictated by a deadline - we’d probably never have been able to call it finished otherwise. Every room in which this album was made has birthed one or more elements of 'Pressure Pad:' Louis’s flat, Tom’s flat, our rehearsal space, the studio where we recorded the bulk of the record.

Lyrically, it touches on someone else being a massive part of your self, but loving it. It’s about totally going with the flow of a relationship, becoming someone you never otherwise would have been, but not over-analysing that, rather being grateful for it."

Drawing from post-punk, dub, trip-hop, dance music and traditional Afro-Cuban rhythms, Folly Group have established themselves amongst UK experimental rock’s new leading lights. Following their acclaimed EPs Awake And Hungry (2021) and Human And Kind (2022), the London quartet’s debut album Down There! will be released January 12th, 2024 on So Young Records. Marrying open-hearted lyricism with furiously inventive self-production, this bracing, complex record lends a genuinely original voice to a familiar theme: alienation in modern Britain.

Collaboratively self-produced by the full band, Down There! is thorough in its exploration of being a young adult in this country: covering mental health ("Bright Night"), physical health ("Freeze"), financial pressures (‘East Flat Crows’) turbulent friendships ("I’ll Do What I Can") and more. Its lyrics are split between lead-vocalists Harper and Milburn, who – despite their respectively more abstract and literal styles – deal with shared themes of “disenfranchisement, dejection, anxiety and financial ruin,” Harper explains. “For every personal step forward, an off-the-cuff decision by a politician we’ll never meet puts us two steps back – a lot of the time we’re basically furious.”

The band tie many of these feelings to the realities of being a young musician, which they have to balance with full-time jobs. “We don’t have enough time to do this band, but we do it anyway. We make enormous sacrifices in areas of our lives, out of blind faith that we’re right to be doing this.” This underscores the feeling that Down There! is – despite its themes – a triumphant album. Its committed, meticulous creation and honest lyricism speak to the group’s shared self-belief and determination, against the odds this album details. “The mere fact that it exists is a victory.”

“I want somebody to be walking to school listening to it,” adds Milburn. “They’ve got to nip across the park, and it’s full of mist because it’s four degrees and the second week of January.”

“I’d like it if people felt they were hearing a band that wasn’t resting on its laurels,” claims Harper.

“I’d like ‘surprise,’” adds Doherty. “I’d like it if there’s just one or two moments on this album where someone who doesn’t know much about us goes ‘Oh. Fuck me. That’s a bit special.’”