Good things can come from bad news. Elle Mary was a mainstay of the Manchester folk scene, launching and running The Folk Cellar and playing her own acoustic material. But following a break-up, she ditched the acoustic guitar for an electric model and put together the Bad Men to tell darker tales. The band’s debut album Constant Unfailing Night will be released next week, nine tracks of beguiling folk noir sure to get under the skin. “I’ve moved from folk to this ‘heavy noir’ or whatever you want to call it,” Mary said. “The Bad Men, Michael Dubec and Pete Sitch have joined me on this journey and probably know me too well as a result of it. The weight they add to the songs is incredible and I really couldn’t ask for a better band.”
Mary’s ex takes the odd hammering on the record, as you might expect, but this deeply personal album is not a break-up record by any means. Mary has dedicated her debut to her late father, whose passing inspired the heart-wrenching ‘Undead’ and the closer ‘Later’. It adds to the serious emotional punch of a highly accomplished debut which is at once lyrically intense and musically sparse. “Space and a minimal approach have always been the most important part of the music to me, to do more with less,” Mary said. “It’s this that draws me in the most about the artists I love (Low, Julie Doiron, Bill Callahan etc.). This allows for my voice to sit on top and the words seep in.”
But you don’t need to take our word for any of this, because we’re bringing you an exclusive first listen to the record a whole week early. Just hit play, and you’ll soon fall under this record’s spell.