UK singer/songwriter Ellur unleashes a searing, cathartic storm on “Lacking Child,” a rousing indie rock anthem reckoning with self-doubt, identification, and the ache of rising into maturity. Talking with Atwood Journal, the Halifax-born artist-to-watch displays on her innermost anxieties and the pursuit of connection – providing a glimpse into the unflinching honesty and electrical vitality driving her music at this time.
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Stream: “Lacking Child” – Ellur
Tright here’s a uncooked ache to Ellur’s “Lacking Child” that you would be able to really feel in your bones: A searing, surging indie rock churn that captures the spiraling expertise of attempting to maintain up, preserve calm, and preserve going.
“This sinking feeling, I do know it so properly,” the Halifax-bred singer/songwriter confesses in her feverish anthem – but as feelings sink, vitality ranges rise. That line alone hits a nerve – and the entire track retains the hits coming: It’s large and daring and heart-wrenchingly susceptible, with dramatic, dazzling guitars, a wide ranging, rip-roaring refrain, and cinematic ranges of catharsis that instantly make you’re feeling extra alive, at the same time as they tear you aside.
I’ve studied you relentlessly
The purple in your face
I steal once I’m leaving the home
I preserve attempting on all the stuff you really feel
Only a wounded canine, a pretend warrior
An abundance of affection,
I drift ’til I drown
Each movie I watch I depart in tears
And each street street
leads me again to this
Each aisle I look down
I’m trying like a lacking child
Launched July 16 by way of Dance To The Radio, “Lacking Child” is Ellur’s first new single of 2025 and the start of a brand new period for the rising British artist (née Ella McNamara). A pointy, unfiltered reflection on the burden of maturity and the identification crises that accompany your early twenties, the monitor builds on the confessional brilliance of final 12 months’s God Assist Me Now EP, showcasing Ellur’s pure reward for pairing gut-punch lyrics with unapologetically explosive indie rock. The track was produced by Joel Johnston (Far Caspian) and arrived this summer season amidst a busy competition run and sold-out UK tour dates, additional cementing Ellur’s standing as one in every of British indie’s most compelling new voices.
For Ellur, “Lacking Child” is a sort of affirmation – her personal homespun sonic self-therapy.
“I wrote it when rehearsing for a help tour I did final November, once I was feeling a bit self-critical and low,” she tells Atwood Journal. “I felt like I’d spent my life copying everybody else and trying to different folks for steerage on how I ought to be dwelling my life. I wanted a track that might decide me up.”
So she made one – and it’s an absolute knockout. From the opening verse (“I’ve studied you, relentlessly… I drift ‘til I drown”) to that devastating hook (“Appear to be I’m therapeutic, I’m going by way of Hell”), “Lacking Child” cuts deep and leaves a mark. It’s a rallying cry for individuals who’ve misplaced their approach, who really feel like strangers in their very own pores and skin – a thrashing, glistening reckoning with disgrace, self-doubt, and the not possible activity of figuring all of it out whereas pretending to be okay.
I’ve been warning you so fruitlessly
It’s biting my tongue,
my enamel they preserve falling out
Each dream I’ve I come out the idiot
There’s hero I’vе been trying to
A fictional world the place you
can’t preserve letting mе down
The whole lot I’ve carried out was for loving you
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Appear to be I’m therapeutic
I’m going by way of Hell
“I discover life throws me conditions typically and I’m left feeling like a child who’s misplaced their mum in a grocery store,” Ellur says.
“I suppose that’s what this track is about for me for the time being. [It’s] about how I observe the folks in my life; I typically really feel like I’m simply copying what everybody else is doing, just because I don’t know what I’m ‘presupposed to’ do… It’s additionally about wanting to maneuver and getting different folks shifting after we play it reside. I like taking part in it.”
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Appear to be I’m therapeutic
I’m going by way of Hell
For you I’m kneeling and kicking myself
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
That duality – of longing and launch, concern and freedom – programs by way of each inch of “Lacking Child.” You may really feel her inside angst and churn beneath the fiery guitars, however it’s all delivered with the sort of livewire vitality that lifts you up even when the subject material drags you down. “It’s panic and despair and disgrace,” Ellur says of the track’s central emotion, “however I’m actually good at hiding it, haha.”
And but right here she is, not hiding in any respect – providing her inside world up in plain sight, and in doing so, making house for others to really feel much less alone. “I need folks to listen to it and suppose, ‘that’s how I really feel!’” she shares. “That’s often my aim with any music launch. At any time when I play reside I hunt down a second with somebody within the viewers the place we are able to make eye contact and I can really feel that they perceive. With the ability to relate to folks I’ve by no means met with out even a dialog is so fascinating to me. It’s like magic.”
With this track, that magic is palpable. “Lacking Child” is music at its most emotionally sincere and sonically thrilling – a shocking, scream-worthy standout from one in every of indie’s brightest stars. As Ellur places it: “It’s the beginning of a sequence of songs that symbolize me at my finest and worst… I’m dwelling out my inside baby’s dream, and I do all of it for her.” She doesn’t simply naked her soul on “Lacking Child” – she invitations us into the whirlwind, providing connection by way of vulnerability and launch by way of sound. Atwood Journal caught up with the Halifax-born artist-to-watch to get beneath the hood of her exhilarating track, discussing the anxieties behind it and the cathartic thrill of turning turmoil into track. Learn our full dialog beneath, and stream “Lacking Child,” out now!
I do know it so properly
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Appear to be I’m therapeutic
I’m going by way of Hell
For you I’m kneeling
and kicking myself
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
And each street leads me again to this
Each aisle I look down I’m trying
like a lacking child
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:: stream/buy Lacking Child right here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH ELLUR
Atwood Journal: Ellur, what is the story behind your track “Lacking Child”?
Ellur: I wrote it when rehearsing for a help tour I did final November once I was feeling a bit self-critical and low. I felt like I’d spent my life copying everybody else and trying to different folks for steerage on how I ought to be dwelling my life. I wanted a track that might decide me up.
You’ve spoken beforehand about how that is the way you observe the folks in your life… What’s this track about, for you?
Ellur: Maturity feels prefer it hits you within the face. I discover life throws me conditions typically and I’m left feeling like a child who’s misplaced their Mum in a grocery store. I suppose that’s what this track is about for me for the time being. It’s additionally about wanting to maneuver and getting different folks shifting after we play it reside. I like taking part in it.
“This sinking feeling, I do know it so properly…” are you able to develop upon what that feeling, what that sensation is to you?
Ellur: It’s a form of darkish, anxious feeling in my abdomen that I get once I really feel like I’ve carried out one thing flawed. Whether or not that’s mistakenly saying the flawed factor or forgotten I used to be presupposed to be someplace, an appointment or assembly or one thing. It typically manifests as this overwhelming, burn out feeling that I get. It’s panic and despair and disgrace… however I’m actually good at hiding it, haha.
How does this monitor match into the general narrative of who Ellur is in 2025?
Ellur: It’s the beginning of a sequence of songs that symbolize me at my finest and worst. It’s me writing alone in my bed room at night time once I’m at my lowest factors after which later recording and performing it once I’m at my finest, within the state of inventive stream. The drums and guitars and sparkles and frills make my diary entry songs really feel like healed wounds once I come to carry out them. Music is so essential to me.
What does it imply to be the “lacking child,” to you?
Ellur: I suppose, bearing that earlier grocery store metaphor in thoughts, it’s additionally an allusion to me looking for and heal my inside baby. A variety of the inventive course of for me lately has been about weaving in concepts and creating issues that she would love. It’s all about discovering her and listening to her. Movies, instrumentation, outfit and magnificence selections, performances. I’m dwelling out her dream and so I do all of it for her.
What do you hope listeners take away from “Lacking Child,” and what have you ever taken away from creating it and now placing it out?
Ellur: Understanding, pleasure and connection. I need folks to listen to it and suppose ‘that’s how I really feel!’ and that’s often my aim with any music launch. I sit up for taking part in it reside and that was all the time in thoughts from the writing by way of to the recording course of. At any time when I play reside I hunt down a second with somebody within the viewers the place we are able to make eye contact and I can really feel that they perceive. With the ability to relate to folks I’ve by no means met with out even a dialog is so fascinating to me. It’s like magic.
For individuals who are simply discovering you at this time by way of this writeup, what would you like them to find out about you and your music?
Ellur: Music is as a lot of a house for me because the place I sleep and the folks I like. I create music that feels susceptible and sincere while wanting folks to really feel comforted and associated to. I like guitars, people rock, indie, pop and various music. I take inspiration lately from Jeff Buckley, The Struggle on Medication, Sam Fender, The 1975 and Dora Jar.
I additionally like studying, Yorkshire Tea, and spending an excessive amount of time on my cellphone.
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Stream: “Lacking Child” – Ellur
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© Sarah Oglesby
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