'A truly great sound' BBC Introducing ★★★★★ 'Beautiful....great music' Amazing Radio ★★★★★ 'Music that sings out with a joy and a pain' Bitter Sweet Symphonies ★★★★★ 'One of those bands you hear and instantly think...wow!' ★★★★★ Songbird Acoustic Blog
The book of Saint Alto, 7:23 Once upon a time there were four boys called Philip, David, Alex and Thomas, by name christened. They decided to get together because they were the getting together type. When they were together they wondered what for, after all, what for? So all of a sudden they grew guitars and fashioned a noise.
Saint Alto, Birmingham’s own folk troubadour lost boys, are a four piece alternative indie folk band. Only a few shows in, Saint Alto have gathered attention for 'hauntingly beautiful' songs paired with the drive of indie folk found in artists such as Ben Howard and Bon Iver
Like going to a church where you suspect nobody is a believer but all are in good voice (and the organ has been switched for a nord). These hymns are broken but beautiful all the same. Guitar, vocals, harmonies, drums and claps are offset with synths, atmospheric swells and bass that rattles the rib cage. Lyrically addressing human flaws, love, depression, mind games and the minefield of the modern relationship merry-go-round, the music is shot through with hope; soaring synths, group harmonies and an impassioned, fried lead vocal. Songs like Manifesto for Suburbia have all the drive, hope and resistance of early Arcade Fire and are offset against songs like Tell Me Something, a broken electronic folk love song with a 'heartbreakingly pretty, dark and beautiful vocal'. A&R Factory went as far as to say the sound 'may just prove to be the future of folk’
The cropped-trousered depressives are made up of Phil Barber, Alex Dodwell, Dave Hammersley and Tom Ridsdill and, presumably because of something terrible they did in a past life, currently reside in the Midlands, UK.