Forgotten Garden have been operating at a quiet distance from each other since 2019 – Danny Elliott writing and playing from the north of Scotland, Inês Rebelo contributing vocals and production from Portugal – and that geographical separation has always felt like it bleeds into the music somehow. Their post-punk influences run through The Cure, Joy Division, and the Smiths, and Inês draws vocally from a lineage that includes Chelsea Wolfe, Weyes Blood, and Lana Del Rey. The press has landed on “Lana Del Rey meets The Cure” as a shorthand, which is admittedly doing a lot of heavy lifting, but it gestures at something real. Their new single “Rain” is due out May 29th.
“Rain” is built around a relationship breakdown told from the man’s perspective – someone who walks away convinced he’ll be fine, and then isn’t. The rain throughout isn’t weather, it’s the depression creeping back in. The track’s arrangement earns that metaphor: Inês’s vocal starts gentle and melancholic in the verses before shifting into something more haunted and pleading in the choruses, which is the right call for a song about denial giving way to the thing you were denying. Argentine bassist Mel D brings a prominent low end that anchors the whole thing, while Danny’s guitar and dark synth work keep the atmosphere suitably heavy without tipping into melodrama. The restraint is what makes it work.
For a duo that works remotely and releases on their own terms, Forgotten Garden has a remarkably consistent sonic identity. “Rain” fits neatly into the world they’ve been building, but the vocal performance alone makes it worth the wait. Inês has a quality that a lot of vocalists in this space reach for and miss – that specific register where fragility and intensity occupy the same note. If you have any patience for melancholic indie rock with some genuine post-punk weight behind it, this one’s worth your time when it lands at the end of the month.
