Southend’s In Earnest has been making a name for themselves in 2020 with enlightening tales of mental illness. They recently self-released their eponymous debut EP, can they continue to push the boundaries?
The three-piece centre around the songwriting partnership (and couple) of Sarah Holburn and Thomas Eatherton. They’re a band with a purpose, that purpose being to open a dialogue around mental health and, in former singles ‘Put Me Under’ and ‘Come Upstairs’, they do just that.
‘Put Me Under’ focuses on Holburn’s chronic anxiety and depression, conditions that prevent her from holding down regular jobs. She goes a long way to paint the perspective of anxiety sufferers. The awareness of what should but can’t be done builds a tension full of integrity. The isolation she suffers Is captured hauntingly with the line ‘You are everywhere and nowhere / just don’t put me under your spell’.
Meanwhile, ‘Come Upstairs’ follows Eatherton’s struggles to cope in the relationship. Eatherton depicts himself as ‘woefully unprepared” which leads him to the despair of “there is a war in every silence’. Despite inner torment, he manages to conjure a Smiths-esque moment of beauty amid the darkness to enrich the soul:
“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”
Their lyrics are so powerful that, It’s easy to overlook the music on offer. There is though, a rich tapestry to draw from. ‘29’ taps into Ryan Adams’ celestial guitar playing and the warmth of I Am Kloot. The nodes of Celtic folk bring King Creosote and Tom Williams to the fore. Dear Father Christmas, please put In Earnest In a studio with Guy Garvey and let them carve out aching lullabies.
‘Come Upstairs’ showcases guitar player Toby Shaer’s love of Bon Iver and John Martyn. Holburn switches up her vocals from the angelic Julien Baker (‘Put Me Under’) and the rousing Laura Marling-esque ‘Fables’. On ‘Fables’, they drift effortlessly into the ethereal territory of Cocteau Twins. They are a band with an arsenal of ethereal weapons.
In Earnest have the songs, they have the talent but, crucially, they have the one thing stadium selling artists can spend a lifetime grappling with. Truth. Their tracks read like diary entries and serve as thought-provoking pieces of art. There’s no pretense and no overreaching for something miraculous. They don’t seek to light up the muddy river beds of Southend, rather, they have become part of the fabric of Southend with these robust but fragile tales.