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 as we speak.
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Stream: “Lacking Child” – Ellur
Tright here’s a uncooked ache to Ellur’s “Lacking Child” which you could really feel in your bones: A searing, surging indie rock churn that captures the spiraling expertise of attempting to maintain up, hold calm, and hold 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 music retains the hits coming: It’s massive and daring and heart-wrenchingly weak, with dramatic, dazzling guitars, a panoramic, rip-roaring refrain, and cinematic ranges of catharsis that instantly make you are feeling extra alive, whilst they tear you aside.
I’ve studied you relentlessly
The crimson in your face
I steal after I’m leaving the home
I hold attempting on all the belongings you really feel
Only a wounded canine, a pretend warrior
An abundance of affection,
I float ’til I drown
Each movie I watch I go away in tears
And each highway highway
leads me again to this
Each aisle I look down
I’m wanting 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 observe builds on the confessional brilliance of final yr’s God Assist Me Now EP, showcasing Ellur’s pure present for pairing gut-punch lyrics with unapologetically explosive indie rock. The music was produced by Joel Johnston (Far Caspian) and arrived this summer season amidst a busy pageant run and sold-out UK tour dates, additional cementing Ellur’s standing as certainly one 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, after 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 seeking to different folks for steerage on how I ought to be residing my life. I wanted a music that will choose me up.”
So she made one – and it’s an absolute knockout. From the opening verse (“I’ve studied you, relentlessly… I float ‘til I drown”) to that devastating hook (“Seem like I’m therapeutic, I’m going by Hell”), “Lacking Child” cuts deep and leaves a mark. It’s a rallying cry for individuals who’ve misplaced their manner, who really feel like strangers in their very own pores and skin – a thrashing, glistening reckoning with disgrace, self-doubt, and the unimaginable process 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 hold falling out
Each dream I’ve I come out the idiot
There’s hero I’vе been seeking to
A fictional world the place you
can’t hold letting mе down
All the things I’ve completed was for loving you
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Seem like I’m therapeutic
I’m going by Hell
“I discover life throws me conditions generally 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 music is about for me for the time being. [It’s] about how I observe the folks in my life; I generally really feel like I’m simply copying what everybody else is doing, just because I don’t know what I’m ‘purported to’ do… It’s additionally about wanting to maneuver and getting different folks transferring after we play it reside. I like taking part in it.”
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Seem like I’m therapeutic
I’m going by Hell
For you I’m kneeling and kicking myself
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
That duality – of longing and launch, worry and freedom – programs by each inch of “Lacking Child.” You’ll be able to really feel her internal 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 melancholy and disgrace,” Ellur says of the music’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 internal world up in plain sight, and in doing so, making area for others to really feel much less alone. “I need folks to listen to it and assume, ‘that’s how I really feel!’” she shares. “That’s normally my purpose with any music launch. Each time I play reside I hunt down a second with somebody within the viewers the place we will make eye contact and I can really feel that they perceive. Having the ability to relate to folks I’ve by no means met with out even a dialog is so attention-grabbing to me. It’s like magic.”
With this music, that magic is palpable. “Lacking Child” is music at its most emotionally sincere and sonically thrilling – a surprising, scream-worthy standout from certainly one of indie’s brightest stars. As Ellur places it: “It’s the beginning of a sequence of songs that signify me at my greatest and worst… I’m residing out my internal 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 vulnerability and launch by sound. Atwood Journal caught up with the Halifax-born artist-to-watch to get beneath the hood of her exhilarating music, discussing the anxieties behind it and the cathartic thrill of turning turmoil into music. Learn our full dialog under, and stream “Lacking Child,” out now!
I do know it so properly
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
Seem like I’m therapeutic
I’m going by Hell
For you I’m kneeling
and kicking myself
This sinking feeling
I do know it so properly
And each highway leads me again to this
Each aisle I look down I’m wanting
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 music “Lacking Child”?
Ellur: I wrote it when rehearsing for a help tour I did final November after I was feeling a bit self-critical and low. I felt like I’d spent my life copying everybody else and seeking to different folks for steerage on how I ought to be residing my life. I wanted a music that will choose me up.
You’ve spoken beforehand about how that is the way you observe the folks in your life… What’s this music about, for you?
Ellur: Maturity feels prefer it hits you within the face. I discover life throws me conditions generally and I’m left feeling like a child who’s misplaced their Mum in a grocery store. I suppose that’s what this music is about for me for the time being. It’s additionally about wanting to maneuver and getting different folks transferring after we play it reside. I like taking part in it.
“This sinking feeling, I do know it so properly…” are you able to broaden upon what that feeling, what that sensation is to you?
Ellur: It’s a type of darkish, anxious feeling in my abdomen that I get after I really feel like I’ve completed one thing improper. Whether or not that’s mistakenly saying the improper factor or forgotten I used to be purported to be someplace, an appointment or assembly or one thing. It generally manifests as this overwhelming, burn out feeling that I get. It’s panic and melancholy and disgrace… however I’m actually good at hiding it, haha.
How does this observe match into the general narrative of who Ellur is in 2025?
Ellur: It’s the beginning of a sequence of songs that signify me at my greatest and worst. It’s me writing alone in my bed room at night time after I’m at my lowest factors after which later recording and performing it after I’m at my greatest, within the state of artistic movement. The drums and guitars and sparkles and frills make my diary entry songs really feel like healed wounds after I come to carry out them. Music is so vital 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 internal baby. Loads of the artistic course of for me not too long ago 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 elegance selections, performances. I’m residing 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 assume ‘that’s how I really feel!’ and that’s normally my purpose with any music launch. I sit up for taking part in it reside and that was at all times in thoughts from the writing by to the recording course of. Each time I play reside I hunt down a second with somebody within the viewers the place we will make eye contact and I can really feel that they perceive. Having the ability to relate to folks I’ve by no means met with out even a dialog is so attention-grabbing to me. It’s like magic.
For many who are simply discovering you as we speak by this writeup, what would you like them to learn 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 weak 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 as of late from Jeff Buckley, The Warfare 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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