The Orielles - Only You Left

“You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” begins Henry Wade, guitarist for The Orielles, describing the foundations of the band’s fourth studio album, ‘Only You Left’. “It comes naturally,” adds singer and bassist Esmé Hand-Halford, “it’s not something we consciously do.”

Through this process of creative renewal, the Manchesterbased trio - completed by drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford - have managed to weather a Pandemic, defy the fickleness of a trend-led music industry and emerge, phoenix-like, with something familiarly Orielles, yet altogether different.

Recorded in two locations - Hydra and Hamburg - over the Summer of 2024, the 11 tracks of ‘Only You Left’ sees the band consolidate the bold experimentation of their previous album, ‘Tableau’ (2022), with a return to the more stripped-back, song-led approach of their early origins.

By exploring binaries and contrasts, The Orielles are finding shapes in the chaos and confusion of the world around us - it’s an undertaking that benefits from more than 15 years of close collaboration, driven by friendship and the artistic compulsion to find meaning in music.