When Peplo released ‘For His Better Three Quarters’ earlier this summer, it gave us our first taste of their long-awaited debut album, We’re Not Getting Out of Here. That song carried glossy guitars, melodic warmth and the personality that first drew me towards the Glasgow quartet when I saw them supporting at the 13th Note. Second single ‘Stay’ finds them working on a grander scale. Peplo call it their take on a power ballad, and they commit to that idea with every piano note, guitar chord and towering vocal.
Peplo are Mark Hinds on drums, Daniel Young on bass, Cit Lennox on vocals and Iain O’Donnell on guitar. Lennox and O’Donnell form the songwriting partnership at the centre of the group and the four of them have spent several years working on We’re Not Getting Out of Here, recording at Chem19 Studios and preparing the album through their own resources. You can hear that time being put to good use across these first two singles. Each song presents its own musical character, with ‘Stay’ revealing a much heavier side of the band.
A muted piano begins the track with Lennox’s voice placed close to your ear. The vocal treatment gives those opening lines a private, enclosed quality. There is a real vulnerability in the delivery. When the guitars arrive, they tear through the restraint of the introduction. O’Donnell uses a rougher tone than we heard on ‘For His Better Three Quarters’, giving the track a force that suits its emotional escalation. The piano remains an important presence, providing a thread back to the intimacy of the opening. That move from a small beginning into a broad wall of guitar gives Peplo their power ballad moment, complete with enough grit to stop the song becoming overly polished.
Lennox anchors the whole performance. As the filtering around the opening vocal recedes, their voice rises into a fierce pop punk register. Their Scots accent gives the words identity and immediacy, while the higher notes carry the fear that sits behind the narrator’s request. You hear someone trying to sound certain as their emotions begin to overtake them. The vocal grows alongside the instruments, reaching for reassurance with increasing urgency. Hinds and Young bring a new level of force to the rhythm section. The changes in timing keep the song restless, shifting the ground beneath the vocal whenever it begins to find comfort. Peplo allow the instrumental passages plenty of room, using each change to increase the tension before Lennox returns to the centre.
The distance between these first two singles makes We’re Not Getting Out of Here increasingly difficult to predict. ‘For His Better Three Quarters’ offered bright melody and dreamy guitar tones. ‘Stay’ places piano, heavier rhythms and a huge vocal performance at the front. What kind of album will contain both sides of Peplo? That question has made me even more curious about the record they have spent so long preparing.
‘Stay’ gives Peplo room to sound bigger, heavier and more emotionally uneasy. It takes the familiar language of the power ballad and fills it with insecurity, blurred intentions and the fear of abandonment. Lennox delivers one of their strongest vocal performances so far, while O’Donnell, Young and Hinds surround it with an arrangement that keeps changing size and intensity. The debut album now feels full of possibilities, and after hearing this, I am more than happy to stay with Peplo until it arrives.
‘Stay’ is out now. You can check it out via the Peplo Bandcamp page.
You can follow Peplo on social media here…
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