Easy Kill at Deaf Institute

“I’m expected to feel something” sings Easy Kill frontman Theo Tobias on their new track ‘For You’, “but I mostly just feel nothing.” Since their formation in the middle of the last decade, Manchester’s Easy Kill have spent the last couple of years holed up working on their most ambitious record to date, and the results are beginning to show. Though Tobias’ lyrics are thoroughly introspective – here particularly concerned with navigating self-doubt and ennui – their music is increasingly anything but. This is widescreen, cinematic indie pitched somewhere between the National and the soaring melancholy of Foals, not least as ‘For You’ reaches its redemptive conclusion, Tobias singing about finding “cause to survive.”

Following two EP’s – Already Entitled and Sermons – Easy Kill released their debut album Melanscholar in 2017, its title making quite clear the group’s commitment to all things dour. Though well-received, its follow-up seems, from the outset, to be much more assured – hence the band’s keenness to share a live video of that first single, ‘For You’, prior to the forthcoming album’s hometown debut at Deaf Institute. The video, recorded at the iconic Blueprint Studios, lets us in on their creative process, capturing the band in a flowing and meditative state. “The songs are all snapshots” explains Tobias about the work that they’ve been creating, “those moments of calm after a storm, and so capturing it live seemed essential to encourage the most honest and organic performance of them.”

Due for release later this year, Easy Kill’s forthcoming record, which is to be entitled Slow Release, is one we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for later this year. Until then, we look forward to getting a sneak peek at Deaf Institute.