Nerina Pallot announces the release of her forthcoming album The Sound And The Fury with a hard hitting and topical video for her song The Road

Inspired in part by Cormac McCarthy’s book of the same name and its “extraordinary story of the human spirit trying to survive insurmountable odds,” “The Road at its heart,” says Nerina “is a song about self determination.” 

Filmmaker Damian Weilers’ interpretation of the song’s lyrics was far removed from the traditional promotional video format yet resonated profoundly with Nerina. 

Shot in Calais over recent weeks it is a frank, impartial document of his experience, highlighting not only the desperate circumstances of the migrant camps but the sense of community they have managed to pull together in spite of their plight.  

Nerina, commenting on the video says – “I met Damian while looking for someone who was taking the music video medium and doing something different, informative and useful. We both agree that making videos is an opportunity to focus attention on important issues and that when certain issues become news, often the humanity at its heart is overlooked and people end up reduced to being problems to be solved.  

According to UN figures, there are currently around 59 million people forcibly displaced in the world – and trying to find somewhere they can call home. To me, this isn’t a political issue – it is a humanitarian one. While European governments argue, the pressure increases. On borders, on local communities, on lorry drivers who find themselves unwittingly carrying human cargo – but most of all, on those who have become stateless and desperate.  

Damian went to Calais with an open mind, and came away moved by the kindness and openness of people who have nothing and just want the chance to work for a better life. People who for a myriad of reasons find the place they once called home unstable and dangerous, and that to stay would mean risking their lives. “

From her own personal experience says Nerina “Britain is a tolerant and accepting country. My mother and her family came here from India in the 1960s, and were able to make a life; to get an education, work and contribute to society. As the product of British multiculturalism, when I see migrants, I see hope and hard work. But most of all I see humans, like you and I.”

The Sound And The Fury, Nerina’s fifth album, is released on September 11th on her own Idaho Records. To describe the album as a departure from its four predecessors is something of an understatement. When Nerina says it’s her mid-life crisis album, she’s only half joking. When she says it isn’t her happiest collection of songs, she isn’t kidding.

The album is as tempestuous as its title suggests. It’s a bold, bluesy, Biblical storm, in turns restless, aggressive and defiant. 

Sonically too there’s been a shift. Inspired by Nerina and her producer (and husband) Andy Chatterley’s collective electronic roots its atmosphere crackles with electronics, space is as vital as sound and textures matter as much as melodies. From the crackling, menacing electro-blues of opener This Is A Drum to spectral, reflective, electro-classical closer The Longest Memory, The Sound And The Fury is as beguiling beautiful as it is disturbingly dark.

Inspired by actual events and the emotions they evoked, The Sound And The Fury is an album of stories, from the city, from inside Nerina’s mind, from weeks spent glued to the news. It’s about love, loss and survival as much as any heartbreak album. It’s about one woman and her fears for her family, but it’s also about where the world is at right now and where it will be in the future.

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