Southend’s In Earnest are a alt-indie band who write about their experiences with mental health issues.
On their debut single (full review here), Sarah Holburn took vocal duties. It focused on her chronic anxiety and depression. This time round, band member and partner Thomas Eatherton takes the lead.
Eatherton details the difficulties of their relationship with an astonishing honesty. As he describes himself as “woefully unprepared”, desperation floods the senses. He goes on to crush your soul with the line “there is a war in every silence” and then break your heart with “no relief to heal the shame…….no proof that exists”.
Despite this, they utilise cinematic and Celtic folk orchestration to build something sonically rousing. This is coupled with the darkest but most romantic lyrics since The Smiths:
“And if a double-decker bus / Crashes into us / To die by your side / Is such a heavenly way to die”
Eathernet tops this with:
“We could both lock lips / On this sinking ship, watch it all go down / We could seal our fate / On a frozen lake, and just drown”
In a world where mental health services are chronically underfunded, their ability to produce great art from their own turmoil is a triumph of the human spirit.