“There’s a certain magic in things being imperfect”: Inside the raw beauty of The Mysterines’ new album

“There’s only so much I can take, in the van,” jokes Lia Metcalfe, calling in from the Liverpool Lime Street station smoking area. The Mysterines’ frontwoman has ditched the rest of her bandmates on their long, winding journey back from Germany’s Hurricane and Southside festivals, opting to catch an early train home. Drummer Paul Crilly, on the other hand, is stranded in a queue near Calais with the others, passing the time by watching the Euros in the van. “I've been putting on some stupid bets, which haven't been coming in,” he sighs.

The Liverpool quartet – who are completed by bassist George Favager and guitarist Callum Thompson – have just unveiled their second album Afraid Of Tomorrows, spending release weekend in Germany ahead of a run of UK in-stores this week. Diving into moody grunge and unsettling alt.rock, the album departs from the fast-paced, rough-and-ready punk energy that underpinned 2022’s debut LP Reeling, opting for a more tender sound this time around.

“I think if you ask any band, they probably feel quite far removed from their debut record,” begins Lia. “I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, either. This second record is probably a bit more apt [for] who we are as a band right now, and where we’re at.”

Whether it’s the eerie production on Jesse You’re A Superstar or the retro Queens Of The Stone Age twang to Goodbye Sunshine, Afraid Of Tomorrows is wholly resemblant of a band with newfound maturity and confidence.

Having toured UK stadiums with Arctic Monkeys and The Hives, recently supported Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and headlined London’s 2,300-capacity O2 Forum Kentish Town within their own right, The Mysterines’ train is moving in a steady, but certain, upwards trajectory. Lia and Paul spoke to Kerrang! about the inception of their second album, and where The Mysterines find themselves as a band in 2024...

Congratulations on the release of Afraid Of Tomorrows. How was it spending your release day at Southside Festival in Germany?
Paul Crilly: “A lot of it was travel time, but the day when we played, it was a bit of a mad line-up – Sum 41 and a load of German bands!”

Lia Metcalfe: “We drove overnight, so when the record came out, we were in the van. It’s funny, because when we wrote Hawkmoon, we were in this caravan in the middle of nowhere. The moon was really huge that night – it was massive and really yellow – and when Afraid Of Tomorrows actually came out, it was a full moon again. We were listening to it in the van, with the same sort of view as we had when we wrote it. The cycle began with Hawkmoon, with a full moon, and then the record came out on a full moon too. I just thought that was a bit of a full-circle moment. You’d think we were into witchcraft!”

Was Hawkmoon the first song written for the record, then?
Paul: “I think Hawkmoon was written in the summer of 2022, so not long [after] Reeling was released. I had the chords, and I realised that sometimes it was quite good to be a bit secretive about things in the process. I just played the chords in front of Lia, to see whether she'd go, ‘What's that?', or if she just wouldn't say anything, so I would know whether it was shit. Hawkmoon just felt different, like it was the start of a new sound for us. If you listen to Reeling and then you listen to Hawkmoon, it's worlds apart. Even down to the way Lia is singing, it was a conscious thing to explore Lia's voice a little bit more. Naturally, you would want to overperform it, when actually, the best way of doing it is to keep it as raw and intimate as possible.”

Lia: “Me and Paul went on a few writing trips, and spent five days in the middle of nowhere, pretty isolated. Some of it slowly revealed [itself] to us, which sort of path to take. From the very beginning, we did want the writing process to be quite immersive. We enjoyed doing it in that way... it's not like there was much of a plan, to be honest. It became exciting, apprehending your own creative journey and not knowing what's going to happen next.”

How did such an open-minded approach translate into a fully-fledged album?
Lia: “It was almost like a mosaic way of songwriting. It slowly pieced together, and parts revealed themselves sooner than other parts. Once you have all the pieces, the mosaic shows itself to you. We got to start from scratch and not do what we're comfortable with, what we [knew]. I think that's how you get the best out of any creative situation, really – by not doing the thing that you should do.”

Was it a smooth transition, entering this headspace and pushing yourself further?
Lia: “I think we felt a bit more compelled to express ourselves and push what we were comfortable with, creatively. It was a bit more exploratory, and it wasn't as ‘by the book’ as Reeling. A lot of that album was pretty much done on an acoustic guitar, really. [For every record], you shouldn't be in the same place, or creative headspace, I suppose.”

You touched on that more raw, intimate sound – what is the beauty in that, for you?
Paul: “The bands that we love, whenever you listen to their recordings, they're not perfect. It's not necessarily about things being 100 per cent right, it's more about the feel, whether it's in any way emotive. Me and Lia are quite similar, in that we get bored quite easily. For example, the last song on the album, Afraid Of Tomorrows, that is the [original] demo. I think me and Lia were quite nervous about suggesting that as an idea, but it was [producer] John Congleton’s suggestion. We did re-record it, but it didn't feel right. I think that whole idea of trusting your instincts and [keeping] trust in your initial ideas, we kept that mantra within the whole process.”

Lia: “There’s a certain magic in things being imperfect. It’s what the record is loosely based on anyway – the imperfections of everything. It creates this whole picture, and eventually, [it] kind of makes sense. I also think the shitter something sounds, the more we like it. We made stuff sound as fucked-up as possible, and kind of got a kick out of doing that. I think that's more enjoyable than things being polished.”

Another Another Another feels like a prime example of that loose approach…
Lia: “With that song, I wasn’t really going through a great time, I hadn’t been as creative as I wanted to be. I was sat in my mum’s bathroom, with an acoustic guitar, and it kind of just happened. I didn’t have to go back and change stuff, it just fell that way – that’s why it’s got a weird structure. Nothing much really does change, which depicts where I was emotionally at the time. That specific line (‘With those foolish thoughts we once called dreams / But now they’re shot down’) was very relevant to how I felt towards my own creativity. I think it was just a summary of what I felt that day in my mum’s bathroom.”

Are there any artists you look up to for that approach?
Paul: “We were listening to a lot of Sparklehorse, and also The Kills and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They’re all bands that were ambitious, who trusted their ideas and initial feelings.”

Lia: “Bands that make those bold choices, there's a certain confidence that oozes from that. A lot of those bands are not always the biggest bands in the world, but they're the most respected amongst creatives. We definitely wanted to channel that approach.”

There’s a noticeable departure from bigger rock riffs on this album – why were they no longer appropriate for your sound?
Lia: “There’s more said in what's not done, if that makes sense. If you leave space for things to create a fragile environment, I think that speaks a bit more. The first record, it was a bit more of a rock record, I'd say, but [this time] it didn't feel right for us to be aggressive in that way. You can create that same feeling [through] silence or space, so I think we just wanted to explore that concept a bit more.”

You’ve toured with Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and The Hives over the past year, what did you learn from those experiences?
Lia: “Frank’s another artist who fully puts themselves into their writing and their music. He's obviously someone who has spoken quite openly about his experiences, his struggles with mental health and addiction. For me, I admired that a lot from him, to hear that side of it all. It just gave us more confidence within, [regarding] the personal matters around the writing of Afraid Of Tomorrows. The Hives – I’ve never met such a group of people who completely go for it, in every way. They live it... what you see is what you get, they are the same offstage as they are onstage.

Paul: “They’re a really old-school rock band, but not in not a cheesy way. Somehow they get away with it, even though it can kind of come across as a bit of a gimmick, [how] everyone’s dressed the same. I don't really know how they do it!”

Afraid Of Tomorrows is out now

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