In Wales, there are lines of poetry that are passed down like an heirloom: “To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth but with music in your blood, and poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.” Stanzas and prose run deep within the valleys as naturally as its rivers, as imperatively as the blood in its people’s veins. Emerging from the depths of Cardiff’s burgeoning music scene, heirs to their country’s lineage of storytellers, are Slate. The four-piece band are barely touching their twenties, but together, they have a command of post-punk which rings with the gravitas of a death-knell; a grasp of atmosphere and melody which touches on the ethereal.
Slate’s debut single ‘Tabernacl’ to be released April 24th on Brace Yourself Records, was dreamt up when vocalist Jack Shepherd and drummer Raychi Bryant were driving in the middle of the night through endless country roads. There is an anxiety that bleeds into its propulsive rhythm, a white-knuckled intensity that mirrors how it feels to push on blindly through the dark. Jack’s haunted incantations take on an immediacy that grab you by the collar, telling of black gates, pale faces, tangling winds and hangdog streets. The rhythm and bass plough on with stoic inevitability before Jack spins from the eye of the storm, drifting away in a finale of haunting, melodic lightness.