Aching from every conceivable angle, Gabriel Paschal Blake takes on the confusion and chaos of the days dwindling away on an emotional punch-to-the-gut of a debut.
Known principally for his work as a founding member of long time favourites The Murder Capital, Gabriel Paschal Blake far from plays it safe on his first solo offering, diving into the disorientating stumble that is grief and the loss of innocence.
‘Everythin’ About You’ lures you in with a deceptively steady pace, muted guitars accentuating the steady beat. The despondency that is to come is subtle at first, hidden in references to Sun Kil Moon’s ‘Benji’ and allusions to the wounds of getting older. By the time the first chorus arrives with murky discordant acoustic strums and rasped low vocals, the track’s true and inherent melancholy comes achingly to the fore.
We’re taken on a dance through the confusion of caring and the weight it can drag you down with. The delicate la la la’s of the backing vocals are unsettlingly childlike, purveying a sense of innocence being lost but its footprint never quite forgotten.
This delicate balance between grief, absurdity, and the confusion that breeds in between, is laid painfully bare by the accompanying self-directed video. Featuring Bronagh Gallagher, it depicts twenty-somethings sheltered in a bedroom, having a flutter on the races to avoid the wake for Gabriel’s mother underway on the ground floor. Inspired by real events, it serves to drive home the frayed relationship between grief, innocence and loss that makes ‘Everythin’ About You’ such an arresting debut offering from the Donegal songwriter, and bodes immensely well for what we can expect to hear in the future.
Photo by Billie STRINGER
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