Sorry Announce New Album With ‘Let The Lights On’

Words by Molly Gregson

London based band Sorry began their journey wearing their hearts on their sleeves, releasing their initial ideas through rough cut demos and mixtapes – a refreshing and endearing start as it showed them figuring out their identities in real time. Their 2020 debut album, 925, became more traditional (albeit often satirical) in its presentation, mocking the clichés of the indie genre whilst combining gloomy guitar band aesthetics, jazz and
post-punk influences to cement themselves as an emerging talent within it.

Their new single, ‘Let The Lights On’ sees them returning to their early form, only with more artistic and aesthetic maturity. The song is ironically direct and emotionally transparent as it describes the concurrent excitement and fear of being honest with a new love, in case this openness “lets the light go off”, singer Asha Lorenz calls out.

“It is a bittersweet track for us”, Sorry said of the song, “it kinda touches on how you want to be honest and say things directly, but in the end that can also ruin them. If you’ve got a light don’t let it go out.”

At its core, ‘Let The Lights On’ is a simple love song, with its backing vocals chanting “I love you” and “I need you” throughout the central and more lyrically hesitant vocal line. Indeed, its main choral refrain “Got a light don’t let it go out with you” is nothing new, echoing the language of The Smiths‘ seminal track, ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.’ But the song still contains the idiosyncratic blend of self consciousness and self awareness that continually makes Sorry such a joy to listen to. Even when just aiming to make a “fun love song for the club”, as the band said in a statement about the song, they manage to make a pop song that is utterly raw and hard hitting.

Alongside the new track, Sorry have announced their forthcoming album Anywhere But Here, which will be released on the 7th October via Domino records. The record was made in collaboration with Adrian Utley of Portishead fame and promises to deliver a “more haggard” and “rougher around the edges” side of life in London than displayed on 925, as band member Louis O’Bryan has stated. The image of London carved out in the bands’ debut is by no means saccharine and so it will certainly be interesting to see how their approach differs on this new record.