Blade of Thorns create the music that is so much more than just recorded. That's what Deep Waters is. It has the feel of something real and you feel it as soon as you put it on. This is a band playing from the inside, not from a distance.
The band are from London and are not in it for trends. This independence reflects in the fact that the song is willing to remain in discomfort before offering any sort of relief. There is no pressure here which has shaped anything.
The song starts softly, allowing the listener to hear the voice in the middle. That voice is a strain and a history, like someone who's experienced what he's singing about. That is far from smooth and it's that roughness that makes it believable.
When the full band arrives, all things get heavier and more urgent. The guitars get wider, the rhythm section starts to really go for it, and the vocals are trying to move beyond the sadness they began with. It has a real sense of struggle in the way the song is being constructed, as though it's working its way upward.
The tone changes later on in the song. The pressure is released enough to allow another emotion to permeate, a less victorious one than triumph, more like relief. Blade of Thorns aren't making that transition quickly. They allow it to come in at a slow pace, so it's not convenient but earned.
All this is enhanced in the official video. Scenes from the hospital, a quiet funeral and the band performing at the coast are interwoven with images of someone struggling in open water. Seeing it alters the way the song sounds, and it's obvious the video was created to complement the emotional delivery of the song, rather than being added onto it.
I had listened to this song several times before I finally wrote anything down, because it is a song you can't sum up on first listen. Deep Waters is sincere, raw and heartfelt and that's the rare kind. Blade of Thorns have created something worth sitting with, worth listening to correctly.
