The first time I listened to Out in the Night it was like going out into the cold without a coat that cold breath-taking burst that opens your eyes whether you like it or not. Mercy Kelly had always possessed that northern advantage, but this new single seems richer, this time around. Returning as a four-piece the band is not as guarded, is more open to letting emotion spill over them rather than containing it. Something feels like it has changed, that they are now broader, more daring than they used to be.
A nervous beat runs through the song and takes hold of that old desire to plunge into the unknown with headlong flight. The vocal of Jack Marland is in the centre of it all, battered and yet determined, and bearing the song like a voice screaming in the darkness and hoping it will bounce back. His performance cuts through shimmering guitars and misted synths and roots the feeling of escape in the song in something very human. This is not an indie singalong this is a line drawn in the sand.
What Mercy Kelly accomplish here is a balance between smallness and grandeur, which is not easy to find. The song has a far-reaching production that does not lose its emotional focus and lets the song breathe and move ahead. The guitar playing of Adam Bridge looks at their Chameleons-influenced background, but it is squarely here, whereas Thomas Mullen and Connor Byrne keep the rhythm going with an almost relentless and forward-moving constant that never surrenders its hold.
Their vision has evidently been honed by time in Kempston Street Studio working with producer Alex Quinn. What has been produced is a song that does not polish the sides of the track - its gothic-coloured, jangling, and unapologetically confident.
Having been featured in Kendal Calling and Tramlines, as well as having already achieved hundreds of radio plays, organically, Out in the Night can be seen as another step to the top. Mercy Kelly are not trying to catch the moment, they are creating it, a release in time.
