Sacred Paws – Run Around the Sun

Run Around the Sun is an unrelenting, fast-paced doubling down on its energetic predecessor that, at its best, conjures a a blissful day to cocoon you from even your worst problems

Album Review by Tony Inglis | 27 May 2019
  • Sacred Paws – Run Around the Sun
Album title: Run Around the Sun
Artist: Sacred Paws
Label: Rock Action
Release date: 31 May

Run Around the Sun has to be one of most apt album titles in years for how, in a short phrase, it perfectly encapsulates the tempo, rhythm and mood of the music it gives its name too.

The second record from Rachel Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers, Glasgow-based duo Sacred Paws, is an unrelenting, fast-paced doubling down on its energetic predecessor Strike a Match. Cartwheeling bass, carnival drums and intensely hooky Afrobeat guitars transport you to one of those blissful, sunny days in the park that Glasgow is crowned with way too rarely, but always manages to cocoon you from even your most worrisome of problems.

Jaunting and jangling, Run Around the Sun barely stops for a breather, making the Caribbean, Vampire Weekend melange of How Far feel almost languid. With their debut, the music created a blend of similar rhythms that, while pleasant and impressive in their own right, felt like sacrificing variety for establishing style. This is a noticeable progression – the theatrical late-album highlight Write This Down’s rollicking horns exemplifying this. Perhaps with Aggs and Rodgers now sharing the same city as home, the closeness of their relationship, as friends and songwriters, has made their mission statement shine even brighter.

But most central to Sacred Paws’ success is their ability to tie up, or even blot out, melancholy, regret (Shame On Me) and post-argument guilt and stubbornness (The Conversation) with their unabashed will to make you dance and will away sadness.

Listen to: The Conversation, Life’s Too Short, What’s So Wrong

http://sacredpaws.co.uk