News Track By Track: Howling Bells - ‘Heartstrings’

In the past ten years, Howling Bells have gone from woozy, alternative rock hopers to an established triumph. Throughout this process, they’ve lost none of the initial frustration that defined their early recordings. In fact, ‘Heartstrings’ might be their tensest, most emotionally caught-up record yet. As Juanita Stein’s below guide confirms, this is an album that deals with difficulties, challenges and the acceptance that life isn’t an easy ride. The band’s fourth album, it was recorded in London with Catherine J. Marks and Alan Moulder, and it’s the group’s first since Juanita had her first child. To consider how much has changed since the band’s beginning pales in significance to the past three years. But here exists a group stronger than ever. Read Juanita’s in-depth guide to the record, ahead of its 2nd June release on Birthday Records. Listen to an exclusive album sampler below.

Paris
Having toured around EU a couple times, we’d always found playing Paris far from whimsical. Arriving in beat up vans and staying in dog bowl hotels, we could never wait to leave. A self confessed Francophile, you can imagine my disappointment. Until, that is, when a girlfriend of mine arrived from Australia and begged to head to Paris for the weekend. In short, I fell head over heels, discovering the sepia toned magic of the city for the very first time. It completely seduced us. The day we got back I wrote the song, it is an ode to Paris.

Slowburn
The very nature of any artist is to create, and then share this creation. Some art forms require more or less time going trough the machine, before exposing itself. The journey for an independent spirited artist in the 21st century requires the patience of a fucking saint. The challenge lies in maintaining inspired throughout the process. This song bottles my frustration at all of that.

Your Love
This song explored the sentiment of sheer heartbreak and all that it leaves behind. When heartbroken, we clasp at anything that resembles unity, anything that might bring you together again. The line ‘Reflections are all I have left’ embodies this, and the line ‘reflections break me like a kiss’ points out how devastating the process is.

Possessed
This song explores the push and pull of the obsessive spirit. Those haunted by an almost irrational drive, utterly possessed by an idea that will send them insane if need be. Some of us teeter on the edge of that emotional seesaw - hysteria is an intriguing human quality.

Tornado
This song was written by my father, Peter Stein, who also wrote the last song on our debut album, ‘I’m Not Afraid’. Lyrically, his songs walk a lonesome path, exploring a more spiritual landscape. His songs have always drawn from religious and political ideas. ‘Tornado’ is a metaphor for one’s internal struggle and how we can emerge from that unscathed.

Euphoria
Again, this song traverses the hollowness of heartache. However this is coming from a wiser place, an older place; a place where answers and exhausting explanations are unnecessary. Only the honesty of one’s heart - that is what euphoria means to me.

Paper Heart
On tour one time, a few of us were standing on the balcony of a frighteningly tall hotel in Australia, when Joel made a paper plane and launched it out into world. It glided effortlessly, for what felt like forever. I mean it, I’d never seen anything float so beautifully, for so long. The metaphor within that occurred to me later on and I wrote ‘Paper Heart’. It’s mostly about how lonesome I found the experience and felt a tinge of that deep melancholy you can feel when apart from those you love. Usually, the most painful separations are the reluctant, but necessary ones.

Original Sin
A rough demo in London, led to a fully formed track in Berlin, where Joel resides. Guilt, innocence, crime and punishment all motivated the lyrical content. We wrote the chorus about letting go; letting go of those fears and misgivings which hold us back so intensely. It’s about suffering the consequences of whatever is coming and moving forward. Sometimes you gotta open your arms to pain and accept it. Fighting it only makes it hurt so much more.

Reverie
A nice summary for the album: ‘I’ve come full circle, I’m here again. I’m poised and ready for the lion’s den’. Nearly a decade since we started the band, we feel wiser and consequently more comfortable with ourselves as people and a band. Through the ebs and flows, highs and lows we’ve come to understand and appreciate our place in the musical stratosphere and serve that as honestly as we can.

Heartstrings
This was written a few years ago, since then we’d tried to do it justice many times without much success. The nature of the song requires such an intense sensitivity and lushness - we were never truly content with the outcome. At a last attempt, we changed up the musical structure, switching from piano to guitar and it kinda came to life. A truly heartfelt and poignant track written in a flurry of emotional outpouring one night in London. It explores the obsessive nature of love. That first love. Where there are no boundaries, just a scorching intent and limitless depth of emotion.

‘Heartstrings’ is out 2nd June on Birthday Records.