Sacred Paws’ debut album, Strike A Match, was created over a distance of 400 miles, with guitarist Rachel Aggs living down south in London and drummer Eilidh Rogers residing up north in Glasgow. These circumstances contributed to an eclectic sound; a varied corpus of songs darting across, and bringing together, indie and Afro-Beats.
Two years on, Run Around the Sun is bigger and brasher. Finally living in the same city, the duo sing their piece against a background of up-beat guitar riffs, lightning speed drum rhythms and a bustling horn section. It’s no-holds-barred music that seeks to take up as much space as possible, with Aggs’ idiosyncratic guitar style and Rogers’ off-kilter drumming culminating in a joyful cacophony of sound.
Album opener ‘The Conversation’ jolts to a start with scratchy, riot grrrl-style feedback, before modulating into well-timed harmonies and a tight, rhythmic melody. On ‘Almost It’, ‘Life’s Too Short’ and ‘Write It Down’ the brass elements peppered throughout Strike A Match are amped up to create a robust, textured sound. Lead single ‘Brush Your Hair’, meanwhile, is an unexpected departure: more mellow than what we’ve come to associate with the duo, with contemplative lyrics like, “When the seasons change/ it makes me think of you” ruminating on the lasting impact of past relationships.
Yet even in these moments of vulnerability, the noise doesn’t stay muted for long. In a world where genuine emotion is increasingly scarce, Aggs and Rogers are feeling in stereo.
