Fawn Spots - From Safer Place (2015)

From Safer Place is the début long-player from York-based Fawn Spots, to be released in March 2015 on Critical Heights. Pulsating with a visceral tension, the album calls to mind the cathartic energy of Husker Du with the disparate post punk angularity of Joy Division and Mission of Burma; urgent and raw but keeping to a clear sense of melody.

The albums title captures the bands existential angst and was borne out of the idea that growing older distances oneself from a place of security, propelling oneself into a position of ambivalence. This bitter-sweet transition simultaneously daunting yet thrilling is revealed musically throughout the album: just as becoming aware of oneself feels as if being thrown into the world, From Safer Place thrusts you head-first into its roaring surge.

Rather aptly, From Safer Place was written and recorded in sheds located in an abandoned Georgian garden, just outside of York; resulting in the album itself working as a literal message from a safer place. Lyrically, main songwriter Jonathan Meager has produced his most challenging, personal and complete work to date, influenced by T. S. Eliot and Jean Paul Sartre amongst others. Jonathan pinpoints Fawn Spots ethos as one borrowed from Guy Debord and The Situationists to live without dead time, to become liberated from the everyday.