INTRODUCING: In The Cards
Having a solid basis in your own experiences is key for making emotional music, and is often the root to success. IN THE CARDS are a Staffordshire-based alternative rock band that have felt their music is more an expansion of themselves as childhood companions than anything else.
“We are Danny Jones [guitar and vocals], Amy Colclough [vocals], Conor Chambers [drums] and Nate Petherick [bass]” the band tell us. “We’ve been friends forever and have always played music together, so IN THE CARDS has grown naturally with us. We’ve always known this is what we want to do.”
The band, who’ve been playing and making music since 2010, have a huge sound filled with haunting vocals, dark, layered instrumentals and combined with melancholy relatability. The sound is comparable to 30 SECONDS TO MARS, RIVALS and PVRIS, with a very current set of emotions running through.
“We’re fairly quiet as people, so our music is very much an outward expression of what we are thinking but not necessarily saying.” With songs that touch on many things we all face and fear, whether we outwardly talk about them or not, makes the reserved temperament of the band and their message even more relatable. “Personal experiences and the challenges of day to day life, particularly from an emotional standpoint, are a source of great inspiration for us. There’s something incredibly cathartic about spilling your thoughts onto a piece of paper and then translating that into the studio to create something that can empower people.”
The bands latest release, The Path, dropped late October, a collection of some of their strongest work to date. “This EP was loads of fun because we had the opportunity to demo a lot of our ideas before the actual recording process,” the group explains. “We worked with our good friend Sam Bloor at his Lower Lane Studios. When we did come to tracking and his vision and attention to detail really allowed us to make this EP personal to us. The Path is the continuation of the journey for IN THE CARDS that collectively we’re all discovering as we go.” As far as creating the sound and the feel for the record itself, the whole process seemed to take little thought, and work on a very intuitive basis. “The Path came together really organically. One of us will bring an idea into the studio, whether that’s new lyrics or a bass line or whatever, and that’s essentially the planting of the seed. Ideas grow from there and the songs begin to really take shape.”
The music IN THE CARDS write is often emotionally relatable, as the dynamics and intricacies of the versus’ crescendo into mammoth choruses and heavy breakdowns, with themes in the lyrics of hiding yourself from the world to trying to look at yourself for who you are. Each song is so open to interpretation, and very easy to jump into, all the while there’s clearly a lot of each member of the band in every song. “This is the most personal body of work that we’ve created so far,” the band agree. “Working with Sam we really got the opportunity to get our hands dirty and inject our personality into the record. It’s music that we love to listen to, so we think that others are going to love listening too!”
There are obviously several aspects for a band that are important. What can be the crumbling of a band is putting one part in front of the other parts, be it one persons control of a band, another person’s desire to move in a certain direction. This is not at all a problem for IN THE CARDS. “We don’t really see one aspect as being more important than any other,” they happy and wisely observe. “Remove anything and it just wouldn’t be the same. Each component, no matter how small, contributes to what makes IN THE CARDS.” One thing does stand out as a highlight for all four of the members, however. “Playing a show and looking out from the stage to see people singing your songs back at you is incredible! Giving people that escape from their everyday lives and feeding off the energy of those who come to watch you play is what it’s all about! We’re going to be touring a load the rest of this year and into next year so keep an eye out for us if we’re coming to play in your hometown.”
The Path is out now via self-release.
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