Album Review: True Surrender, Delorentos

Hometown heroes Delorentos are back. Following 2014’s hugely acclaimed Night Becomes Light, the Dubliners have upped the ante again, with perhaps their most ambitious LP yet. Not that making it has been a straightforward process.

On tour in Spain, in 2015, the band were afforded the idyllic luxury of recording at a studio in a vineyard, and set about shaping their fifth long-player. Whatever happened, the resulting tracks didn’t feel right, and so the work was scrapped. True Surrender was born out of the ashes of that experience. Written and recorded over a three-year period – a time during which band members also began raising families and adjusting to the attendant complexities of juggling domestic and musical life – it makes the decision to go back to the drawing board seem like a very good call indeed.

The album opens with the delicately paced ‘Stormy Weather’, with lyrics that would seem to indicate that all wasn’t particularly well in the camp. It also announces the project’s grand ambitions: high production values, lush arrangements, soaring vocals, anthemic choruses, and a deft experimental edge that allows it to rise above standard indie rock limitations.

Across eleven tracks True Surrender is characteristically full of nuances and intricacies, particularly on stellar numbers such as ‘Islands’ and the majestic, synth-led ‘Love Me For Who I Am’. The latter is a particularly joyous moment of resonant indie pop.

Overall, there’s less emphasis on guitar dynamics than on previous releases, substituted here with more synthetic sounds and a heavier rhythmic approach, as on slow burner ‘Eagle Eye’, a fine track but one which, like the acoustic ballad ‘Am I Done’, slows the momentum somewhat.

The rich production values of True Surrender are built to accommodate layers of superb backing vocals and ethereal keyboard flourishes. This is “Big Music” Delorentos-style. It occasionally sounds like a band in existential crisis, but then clearly – somewhere along the way – they were. Yet there are hooks and melodies aplenty, ensuring the record will appeal to long-time fans and newcomers equally. At its best, True Surrender is a truly stirring piece of work. It is accessible and approachable whilst retaining the quartet’s crucial maverick quality and distinct musical identity. A glass of Cava to celebrate might be in order. On second thoughts, maybe not...

Rating: 8/10