Duo Sound of the Sirens explore life-changing events on new album

But now, this spring, Sound of the Sirens are making good on their Brighton promise with a date at The Brunswick on Friday, April 4. They also play The Star Inn, Guildford on Saturday, April 5.

An acoustic singer-songwriting duo based in Exeter, comprising Abbe Wood and Hannah Walker, they have been honing their craft over the past decade, becoming firm favourites not just on the West country scene but nationally and internationally gaining a fast-growing fanbase.

Abbe explains: “We live in Exeter and we were both working in Timepiece, an old bar full of old memorabilia. Anybody that has ever visited Exeter will know the place. We were both working behind the bar and we started chatting and we struck up a friendship and we started walking home together and singing together. I had more of performance background and liked singing. Han had a stronger musical background. She was auditioning for a functions band and I tagged along and we did that for a couple of years. We enjoyed singing harmonies together and we had little dance routines that we did. It was all party music for parties and weddings and it was good fun.”

And from that they emerged as Sound of the Sirens, Hannah says: “I was sort of playing the guitar and so was she and we started doing a few covers ourselves and ended up doing our first-ever gig. We played our own guitars and did some covers and chucked in an original song. That was maybe 15 years ago. We were Sound of the Sirens straight away but we were a trio at the time. We had our friend with us but she ended up leaving and moving to London so we carried on as a duo.”

A turning point came when they won a couple of days in a London recording studio in 2013: “We decided that we would record a whole album in two days. There are nine tracks on it and we're still selling it at gigs. And people are still enjoying it.”

Abbe adds: “Our voices have developed since and it sounds very basic and is very raw acoustic in its sound but people still enjoy it and we still push it.”

The latest album is The Other Me which came out at the end of January: “A lot of our music is very personal about our lives. There is a lot in there about the life-changing things like parenthood and motherhood and women ageing. It is our journey through life. There is loss and life after the loss and grief but there is also lot of joy on the album as well and there is also a lot about personal discovery.”

As Abbe says: “There is a song about loss and about life after the loss though it is quite up tempo, The Part Where You're Gone. I lost my dad a few years ago from Alzheimer’s and it's about recognising that you are still really grieving. It's about recognising that things have happened since his loss and since his absence and that things continue without him. There's an allowance that life carries on but there is also an acceptance that he had had a good long life and we were not robbed of a young person which would have been a completely different scenario. But it's still your dad and we were really close. I did a lot of music with him when he developed dementia. Music is something he was really connected with so I've got lots of videos and audio recordings of his voice and I love listening to them now.”