Although it’s sold out and I clearly forgot to finish this preview ages ago…oops…I think the excuse I can grasp at in my defence is that the songs speak for themselves. Part garage-pop attitude, part sublime indie tunesters this two girls ‘n two boys quartet popped up last year fully formed and armed with tunes and hooks from heaven. Their self-titled debut skyrocketed into the album charts at #150 in the UK, there’s still hope for indie bands the world over it would seem and Veronica Falls the beacon of it.
Initially forming two years ago when Doyle and Roxanne Clifford (guitars, vocals) moved to London from Glasgow and met James Hoare (also on guitars and vocals) through mutual friends, the band ended up in a friend’s studio in Hoxton, where free downtime enabled them to develop songs at their leisure. From then on, the band have undoubtedly had a charmed existence. How else to explain how they ended up playing their first ever show with critically lauded indie rockers Pains of Being Pure at Heart, or, indeed, how they recruited bassist Marion Herbain, who was a friend from Glasgow who only learnt to play the bass when she was asked to join the band
A series of live shows through Europe and the US, including a fondly remembered SXSW stint this year (“We played one show outside a family run bike shop in the car park in the blazing sun which was a definite highlight”, Hoare says) have punctuated the recording of their debut album, which originally began as a “doomed residency at a studio in Yorkshire” where they locked themselves away for two weeks in deepest, darkest winter with little contact with the outside world, before the band scrapped the sessions entirely to re-record the songs in 3 days in London. “The previous session ultimately sounded overproduced”, Hoare explains. “We ended up recording live, and it was this old fashioned method which captured the sound and feel of the band more accurately”.
Here’s a couple of theirs, Bad Feeling and Stephen live:
