The Room - The Telling

Liverpool post-punk pioneers The Room are back with a new album ‘The Telling’ – a
melodic blend of progressive, alternative pop and sultry post-punk, which is just as fresh and relevant now as it was when they first broke up in 1985. Firm favourites of the late John Peel, who hosted the group for four BBC live sessions, The Room have been compared to Joy Division and fellow Liverpool band Echo & the Bunnymen, with whom, along with visionary contemporaries The Fall, The Birthday Party and Tom Verlaine, they shared the stage with in the early 80s burgeoning post-punk movement.

The Telling consists of 11 songs that tell a continuous folk-horror story set in a mythical
17th-century forest in Europe. It involves a traveling storyteller who mesmerizes an isolated village with tales of a mysterious shapeshifter, wolves, ravens, a love affair between the Baba Yaga's adopted daughter and Grendel's long-lived brother, and some witch-finders who come under their hammer.

The concept was conceived as an aural movie or a treatment for an as-yet unfinished
screenplay told in individual self-contained songs that represent chapters in a complete narrative. It has no lyrical choruses that repeat its themes but keeps the action moving forward and, unlike most concept albums, tells its unfolding story without the need for extra explanation. The album comes with a full lyric sheet influenced by the layout of the Gutenberg Bible.

The idea came about due to frontman Dave Jackson’s interest in folktales and myths and remembering a visit to a cuckoo clock museum in the Black Forest where he learned about traveling clock sellers and storytellers who would move between villages. The Telling features the welcome return of Clive Thomas and his fluid open-handed drumming and the haunting backing vocals of Helena Jacks, along with the marvelous Becky, Ethan, and Darren to create a magical sonic adventure.

Talking about lead single ‘The Teller’, Jackson said:

“The Teller is the opening track of an eleven song album set in a 17th Century European
forest. A traveller arrives at a remote village offering to tell a story of 'dark love and what came after' in return for a bed for the night. After some resistance from the butcher and the baker, he begins a tale about a young man from a similar village who falls for a strange woman in the forest. But discovers she can shapeshift into a raven or a wolf. The album provides a continuous narrative through all the following songs over a blend of post-punk music like a sort of aural folk horror feature film.”