By Paddy Kinsella

It’s cruel how our minds often wait until the evening, our time to relax, to take us to its darkest corners. Swallow Cave explore that merciless phenomenon on new single, Cold Moon – ‘It’s about feeling really low and going to the darkest places in your mind, which for me is often late at night, and then the next morning feeling everything with kind of heightened senses and disbelief that my mind could have gotten that low the night before, but then inevitably goes back to again,’ explains lead singer Polly.

The cyclical nature of that shift from light to dark dominates the song. The ominous feel of Deerhunter’s Halcyon Digest is present in the verse, but, in the chorus, it unravels like a knot – the sun-dappled soundscape greeting you like a morning shower that blasts you out of your night-time fug. ‘Did you hear the birds above your head / or the crashing waves ahead,’ Polly sings in her haunting monotone, admonishing her mind for not being present. Songs like this often by end by amping up the volume, letting the guitars rip, and the drums hale. But Swallow Cave heave a rock to the door of their cavern – shutting out the light with a pensive, moody ending.

The dark nights may not be kind to lead singer Polly, but it’s there where her band flourishes.