The Pierces - Glorious

With new track Glorious, The Pierces confirm their place as having one of the most brilliant run of singles in recent years. First Love You More, then You'll Be Mine... Glorious makes it a hat-trick. With a chorus of "God bless the world, it's so glorious", the track is suitably uplifting and sisters Allison and Catherine carry the whole thing off with ease.

The duo have a real knack of striking the precise balance between up-tempo toe-tapper and gentle balladic beauty. In the sweeping guitar licks and swelling string sections, we feel as if we are rushing across the plains of America to the girls' homeland. "It got so lonely when you turned away," they sing, but we are only left wondering at how anyone could turn away from a song as lovely and enchanting as this.

The Sun has the exclusive premiere of the track's video and even this seems imbued with this hazy sense of forgotten years that The Pierces have come to capture in their sound. There's pretty retro dresses, filmic sepia-toned touches and shots of packed music halls. In this track comes an intense rush of emotion, as with their previous singles, The Pierces have this mastery of hitting exactly the right spot to send shivers of delight and reverence down you. It's in the beautiful harmonies, it's in the twinkling guitar and percussion. Truly Glorious.

Glorious is released on the 23rd May with their album You & I following a week later.

The Pierces - Love You More

There’s an old myth about the ease and skill at which musical siblings come together.  A myth they say... but listening to Alabama sisters Allison and Catherine, that myth seems so much closer to reality.  Collectively the twosome make up The Pierces, and summed up in one word, their music is simply magical.

Imagine dark, stormy nights... howling wind and starlight, the hint of something mystical and powerful, this is the music of The Pierces.  This four track EP is headed up by the brilliant Love You More, a song wrapped in such an undeniable, natural sense of melody that you can only marvel at the sisters’ songwriting talent.  The girls have been releasing music for the past ten years but it is only now that they have been picked up by a major label and given the exposure they deserve.

If you’ve ever wondered what Elbow or The Doves would sound like with a female vocalist, The Pierces are a pretty good match.  Their tracks have that same raw energy running through them; the driving, rough guitar hook a thing that has been gripped and beaten into shape with bare hands and untamed passion.  We Are Stars represents a far more gentle sound, but still captures that same hand-crafted, baroque feel.  The duo’s lyrics are poetic gems of beauty too; ‘We are dreamers, wishing upon what we were born from’ they sing on this track.

To The Grave shows off a more jolly, upbeat side to The Pierces, highlighting that they are just at home here as with the expansive, melancholy sound that the EP begins with.  Across all four tracks though, we keep coming back to a consistent, organic feel that is testament to the skills of Coldplay’s bassist Guy Berryman lending a helping hand with production duties.  Indeed, the tracks carry that same shimmering sense of wonder that gave Coldplay’s Viva La Vida album such character.  Every song on this EP is rich and powerful; every chorus completely infectious, each track delivered with a conviction and gentleness that is utterly bewitching.