FREYA BEER can confirm the release of her long-awaited debut album: ‘Beast’. Released via her own Sisterhood imprint, it will be available digitally and on CD, next week on Thursday 7th October 2021.
The latest in a string of captivating singles, “Beast” follows previous cuts “Siren” and “Calm Before The Storm”; each paving the way for one of 2021’s most anticipated new releases from one of its most defiantly uncompromising new talents.
Freya Beer has earned a reputation for music that mixes poetic lyrics inspired by Charles Bukowski or Anne Sexton, with the distinctive gothic stylings of Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, or David Lynch. Highly literate in her reference points both musical and written, they shine no greater than on the obsidian sheen of her bewitching debut album: ‘Beast’.
Unphased by the isolating impositions of the previous year, Freya used the period’s foreboding limitations as a means to feed her art and blossom as an artist. Using her time away from the live stage to connect with her creative impulses on a deeper level, she began to nurture and raise the debut album she had always wanted to make.
Delving into the aspirations of the dreaming to the lucid nightmares of the living, the songs of ‘Beast’ find Freya blurring fiction and reality with a disorienting daze. Scouring the silver screen for nuanced narratives, many of the songs of ‘Beast’ glean initial inspiration from characters seen in classic cinema. Distorting their stories and injecting traits of her own volition, their journeys soon become very different prospects. As Freya explains:
“ With most of my songs I always tend to take inspiration lyrically from film story plots that I’ve interpreted into my own personal experiences.” she says. “The songs of “Beast” all have elements of empowerment with a gothic undertone. The album takes you on a journey, right from the opening title track (“Beast”) that follows through a euphoric dream of a devilish figure to the closing track of “Put it to the Test”.”
Pairing vividly expressive imagery to soundscapes of a glowering noir, it’s an album that finds Freya at the epicentre of a maelstrom of sound and imagination; and in complete control.
A record that places artist and audience in a restless pursuit of predator and prey, the songs of ‘Beast’ will both pull at the heart-strings with moments of unadorned innocence, before pincering souls and ear-drums alike with instances of merciless sonic thrash. From the snarling punk of opener “Beauty” to the disarming solo strums of “Pure”, the encircling eeriness of more esoteric moments like “Secret Garden” or “To The Heavens and All Their Work”, to the tempestuous post-rock venturings of tracks like “The Calm Before The Storm” and the engrossing album closer “Put It To The Test”; ‘Beast’ is a record that constantly plays with the listener as they play it through, with Freya always holding the reins.
FREYA BEER – LIVE DATES
Wednesday 10th November – The Lanes, Bristol
Friday 12th November – The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham
Saturday 13th November – Jimmy’s, Liverpool
Tuesday 16th November – Paper Dress Vintage, London
Saturday 20th November – Headrow House, Leeds
Sunday 21st November – Night & Day Cafe, Manchester
Tuesday 23rd November – Bobiks, Newcastle
Wednesday 24th November – Hug & Pint, Glasgow
Thursday 25th November – Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh
Saturday 27th November – Old School House, Barnsley
Thursday 2nd December – Music Hall, Ramsgate
Friday 3rd December – Hope & Ruin, Brighton
Sunday 5th December – The 1865, Southampton
