South London’s Bollards emerge from personal realms of perpetual distraction with their latest single, ‘No Room’.
For their newest releases, Bollards have shed their skittish disco art-rock guise and deftly exposed their vulnerabilities, creating much warmer dulcet tones than what came before. Trapped in a nest where convenience reigns, comfort is entirely elusive, and fulfilment is devoid, lives become cluttered with the throes of modernity, and the things you own end up owning you. Comprised of a set of triadic disconnected verses, vocals pensively muse around themes of detachment, nostalgia, and the longing for something more.
Vocalist and guitarist Jonny Dickens decodes for us: “It’s about trying to find comfort in a place where it just isn’t possible, trying to find and accessorise a space with material things to change that, and the realisation that it’s not the space, it’s you.”
‘No Room’ oscillates between spacious atmospherics and a claustrophobic sense of disquiet, while traversing an uncharted digital wasteland. Unfazed instrumentation remains level as the sweeping crackles of distortion infect the neon-lit walls of arpeggiated synths. Setting ablaze subservient automatons and unsatisfying artificial conveniences, it’s only after losing everything that there’s the freedom to do anything.
What began as a solitary bedroom endeavour has blossomed into an exciting new collective, with members hailing from cult London groups Fake Turins and Polyscraps. And while ‘No Room’ may be the favoured sibling, its accompanying B-side, ‘Changing Lives At Sea’, demands immediate attention in its own right.
Photo by Mars Washington/Jonny Dickens
The new issue of So Young is out now. You can purchase in print here or read the digital edition below.