In July, we covered Lord Jane’s “Kaleidoscopes”, a single from the Belfast rock group’s new EP The Lifting of the Fog. On that single, the band made their angular blend of math rock and post-hardcore shine. Now, the EP brings three additional tracks, further highlighting the group’s musical styles and turning up the volume on their introspection.
With a blistering style – which the band promotes as similar to Wolf Alice, Delta Sleep, and Paramore – Lord Jane releases The Lifting of the Fog as a testament to their frustration over helplessness. Lyrics sear with sadness over the state of the world and disdain over a lack of action to fix it. But the band continues to hold out hope, as they state in their Bandcamp liner notes for the record: “A fog never stays forever. It has to lift eventually, even if it’s just long enough to let you breathe.”
“Fog” has often symbolized depression and listlessness, and on the new EP, Lord Jane does not shy away from that metaphor. But the band also uses the metaphor of smoke. On “Kaleidoscopes”, Clodagh May sings: “Burnt out from hope/Kaleidoscopes/Can’t fix it now/We’re up in smoke.” It’s a damnation of defeatism, but also a remark about the reality of the current situation across the world: People trying to spin shattered pieces of what once was into something beautiful again, despite that veil of fog clouding everyone’s vision.
The three new tracks from The Lifting of the Fog explore other elements of “the fog”, examining the different layers of depression. On the lead track “All I Know”, May sings from the perspective over someone deep within their darkness, going through the motions of life (watering the plants, feeding the cat) but falling into moments that remove them from the routine, causing them to zone out, feel nothing, force themselves to cry, and cut their hair (or their skin) in the wee hours of the morning. The end of the chorus is simple, but poignant: “All I know is how it feels to feel like nothing/All I know is how it feels to be on something.”
“These Last Few Weeks” defines the feeling of coming out from the fog, rejoining the living, and realizing the damage control that needs to take place: Apologies to friends and family for not returning calls, making up for missed deadlines and parties and coffees, coming to terms with the neglected daily cleaning, laundry, and other errands. The title of the album manifests in the chorus of this song: “When the guilt hits/Repairing the damage I was not present for/It’s persistent/Keeping me in it, how I dread the lifting of the fog.” While coming out of the doom spiral is a good thing, there’s always the comfort of staying in it, knowing that responsibilities and expectations and explanations await on the other side.
“Banmharú” translates from Irish to “murder” and somewhat detracts from the rest of the EP stylistically and lyrically. Where the other three songs explore depression and derealization with a heavier musical sound, “Banmharú” takes a softer tone with a stripped-down arrangement, focusing on the guitar work of Sam Foote and Aidan Reynolds as well as May’s vocals. The song explores the fear of being female-presenting in a world growing darker by the day, painting vignettes of an uneasy date with a strange man, walking past dark passages and alleys with a dead phone, and reading about a mother killed in bed by her son. Although the song does sound different from the others on the record, the theme of the fog is still present: How can one maintain clarity and joy in a world where death is always around the corner? The fear is a form of fog, and can leave you with thoughts such as “It crosses my mind when I look at her picture/The next time it could be me there instead.”
One has to hope that the fog will lift someday, that we will all find clarity and not have to worry so much about dark things. But it does not dissipate so easily. For even if we get through it, the fog lingers, waiting to drop back down in one form or another. Perhaps, as Lord Jane does on The Lifting of the Fog, the only way to deal with the fog is to address it at a loud volume, realizing it, not in acceptance, but rather in defiance of it.
Lord Jane are Clodagh May (vocals), Sam Foote (guitar), Aidan Reynolds (guitar), Carl Small (bass), and Dylan Nortin (drums). The Lifting of the Fog was released on 7 November 2025 and is available on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms.
Written by Will Sisskind
