Umarells

After forming on a group trip to Blackpool and recently announcing their debut EP 'One More Day', due Nov 8th via Fear of Missing Out Records, today Manchester-based five-piece Umarells share the title-track from the upcoming record. As well as this the band have announced a run of UK tour dates for this November with shows in Sheffield, Manchester & Hull.

“One More Day” is about “one of our really close friends and missing them,” says guitarist and vocalist Josh Yeung. “It’s a dedication.”

“Another day without you / Another week without you / Another month without you / Can’t take the days without you,” sings Imogen Badrock in her incandescent coo on the EP’s standout title track, a loving portrait of friendship filtered through the lens of pillow-soft indie-pop.

When life gives you anthropomorphic whistling lemons, why not write a song? One late night, post-restaurant shift, Imogen Badrock (vocals/synth) and Josh Yeung (guitar/vocals) acted on a bleary-eyed creative urge that resulted in a goofy demo about an organic lemonade drink, sparking the formation of the Manchester dream-pop troupe now known as Umarells. After bringing in bassist Ryan Marsden and drummer Sarah Knowles, Umarells sealed the deal as a quartet during a group trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a thrill-seekers’ “dystopia” that will forever hold a special, sugar-coated place in their hearts. “All roads lead to Blackpool,” they joke.

One More Day, the debut EP from Umarells, circles peaks, plummets, and upside-down turns for a front-row seat on the emotional Big Dipper of life. The faded sparkle of the Blackpool seaside trails through five postcards of smouldering indie-rock, from the intimate title track to the glistening guitars of first single “June,” which was inspired by a Smashing Pumpkins riff. 
 
“June” is “the epitome of the lighter days coming in through a dark winter; someone who pulls you out of a depressive slump by just being around. Seeing the sun through your curtains after countless grey days,” say the band. 

Now with the addition of lead guitarist Fuchsia Summerfield, Umarells—their name taken from a very specific Italian word for retired men who watch construction sites—arrange pieces of post-hardcore, shoegaze, Midwest emo, and ‘00s indie-psych into reflections on grief, loss, and failed relationships, all shot through with ocean-deep introspection and mixed by Alex Greaves (bdrmm, Working Men's Club). One of the band’s earlier offerings, “Closer” considers “the state of dreaming and how it’s all disconnected and unusual,” explains Badrock.
 
For “Ocean,” Badrock worked a little magic with her Korg synth to conjure a wave of washed-out textures in thrall to the song’s watery namesake. “I sort of envisioned the sea coming in and out,” she explains. “Connected with Josh’s melancholy guitar playing, it’s about the breakdown of a relationship and those moments when you’re just looking out at the ocean and reflecting on everything.”
 
The diaristic trajectory continues on twinkling indie-pop dreamscape “You’re Not Here,” which was released as the band’s debut single for FOMO in November 2023 and is described as a “bit of a liberation song.” Badrock says: “I wrote this when I felt free of a relationship and able to do as I please without being told I couldn’t. As the song builds at the end it’s a cathartic release of the past, a bit of an ode to a siren.”
 
Ultimately, the band’s soaring autobiographical missives form the widescreen soundtrack to their lives, and film fan Marsden would love for one of their songs to be featured in a movie. “I guess we’d probably suit like a Lost in Translation-type-film, something artsy and emotional. Or perhaps a relationship breakdown—as long as it happened in Blackpool.”