Ahead of his highly anticipated solo debut album ‘Art’, lifelong musician Paul
Archer unleashes his stomping new single ‘Fear Destroyer’!
Creative rebirth:
There are many “firsts” with ‘Art’: the first Paul Archer solo album in a 30-year
recording career; his first vinyl album (conceived as such from the start); and the first
time his visual art has intersected with his musical world, featuring on the cover and
inserts. It is also the first album of a new career phase back home in Northern Ireland
after many years in East Anglia with Burning Codes – and fans are already telling him
it’s the best thing he’s done.
After 30 years of rock ‘n’ rollercoaster travails – major label deals that happened but
nothing eventuated, management meltdowns, publishing disasters – Paul’s positive
energy is undimmed. ‘Art’ is not the lonely drinker in Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks,
wondering how it all slipped away – it’s an explosion of power, passion and grace,
the sound of a man with fabulous melodic gifts still seeing chinks of light whatever the darkness.
‘Fear Destroyer’
Paul digs into the emotional depth of his new single describing how “‘Fear Destroyer’
is written in response to how my journey is changing and moving towards real,
tangible freedom from anxiety and fear to faith and belief in a loving higher power
which identifies deeply with each of us and wants to heal, nurture, protect and liberate
us from fear by means of profound love. This love permeates the sub atomic fabric of
everything beyond even the quantum level. This song is a joyous explosion of light,
love and liberation and becoming spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally
whole.”
Biography:
Paul’s music journey began in Belfast in the mid-90s with Disreali Gears, a soulful
psych-rock experience beloved on the then thriving local scene. One album and a lot
of great memories remain. Out of that, the Ghears [sic] emerged (1998–2003, four
albums) – a new band, a relocation to England and a sound that incorporated Paul’s
love of Krautrock locked grooves with his deeply compassionate worldview,
crunching guitars and rich vocal gifts.
The Burning Codes era (2008–18, six albums) ended on a high with the
album Liberator and single ‘Loss Leader’, with the valedictory East Anglian line-up of
the band widely celebrated as a thrilling live experience.
Returning to Bangor, NI in 2018 for family reasons, Paul rode out the impasse of
Covid and its long-tail damage to the NI live scene with a series of digital singles,
including an embryonic version of the song ‘Art’ (2021). This approach had begun with
the glorious one-off homage ‘Belfast (Place of My Soul)’ in 2017 – attributed to
Burning Codes but effectively a Paul Archer collaboration with various luminaries of
the place where his music began, including ‘Godfather of Punk’ Terri Hooley, Snow Patrol’s ‘Nathan Connolly and Paul’s brother Iain Archer, an award-winning co-writer to the stars. Marry Waterson has created the live/animation promo for ‘Fear
Destroyer’, ‘Art’ will be a lyrics visualiser.
‘Fear Destroyer’ marks an ambitiously exciting new chapter for Paul Archer, and it is not to be missed!
