“Maybe it’s because I was born under bad stars,” sing Finn and the Jacques, in their debut single. Isn’t that just all too cosmically relatable? With a hovering darkness over honey-sweet vocals, Born Under Bad Stars elicits a sensation of endlessness, akin to lying on your back beneath a summer night’s sky.
The song begins with a mellow sweeping of acoustic guitar, accompanied by vocals that drip emotion. It grabs you in the gut right away. The first chorus leaves plenty of space for the song to build, adding to the impact when the rest of the instruments join in for the verse. Opting for a toned down lineup, Finn and the Jacques use hand drums and mandolin to hammer in their sweet, hippie-folk sound, resulting in music that stands out from the ocean of indie rock bands currently flooding the airwaves.
“Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, it just wasn’t meant to be,” sings Finn Pelling, the band’s vocalist. Heavy with enlightened speculation, you can really hear the emotional connection in this song’s top line. “Or maybe I’m just a fool who believes in fate and destiny, ‘cause you made me,” the song muses. It’s safe to say that most people have felt exactly the same way at some point in their life, but Finn and The Jacques have managed to put it down into words.
The band formed one year ago, almost to the day, and have since graced stages across Cardiff with their boundary-pushing, glam-folk vibrancy. Their most recent performance, just before lockdown, saw a completely packed room at the city’s iconic Clwb Ifor Bach. Their sound truly shimmers in a live setting and they know just how to create that special kind of silence that unites hundreds of strangers listening closely.
Luckily, Finn and the Jacques have figured out how to capture that magic in their studio recordings as well. Born Under Bad Stars combines dreamy vocals with a refreshing energy that evokes the sentiment of a live show. There’s a raw humanity in the song’s performance that is hard to come by. If you’re a fan of emotionally driven, tambo-pop-rock, then Born Under Bad Stars is for you!
Color Code: Lilac
You can hear Born Under Bad Stars HERE: https://spinnup.link/341281-born-under-bad-stars
