ON THE RISE
For an artist who has put out one album per year since 2017, fans of Sam Welch will not be surprised by a new release for 2025. They may be surprised, however, by the struggles Welch overcame in releasing the eight songs on The Attic.
Subtitled “Songs of Faith and Healing,” the album reflects a difficult year, including an ear injury and a sick pet. Releasing The Attic required real healing. What helped to get the longstanding Unitarian through the pain? Plenty of faith.
The album’s opener, title track “The Attic,” lays out Welch’s point of view with this release—both musically and lyrically. The song begins sparsely, with upbeat drums underneath organ chords, reminiscent of a church service or sixties rock like Procol Harum. It soon kicks into high gear with multiple guitars and Welch’s signature layered vocal harmonies.
The message is one of listening, perseverance, and the cyclical nature of life:
Life is just another yard sale: it’s a long, long tale
A Bible with a broken body held together by a nail
When you’re living in the attic, you’ve gotta listen to the static
Life ain’t automatic, and you gotta be pragmatic
The album emerged from a difficult year, marked by an audiological injury in Welch’s home studio. A burst of feedback left him with tinnitus, making it painful to write and record music, an ordeal that tested his resolve and shaped the album’s core themes of healing and resilience.
Inspiration also came from a more joyful source: the complete transformation of his cat, who recovered from lifelong health problems after starting with a new vet. This experience was so profound that it inspired a track on the album, a song fittingly titled “Cat on the Mend.”
Welch’s main collaborator on The Attic was audio engineer and co-writer Dan Searl, who helped shape the album's sound. While Welch plans his tracks in his home studio using Logic, Searl introduced a polished and organic sound production, filling out the tracks with rich pianos, interesting guitars, and tight mixes.
Sam Welch may be the country’s most prominent Unitarian singer, evidenced by a discography that includes his 2005 album, Unitarian Hymns. His spiritual themes have other sources as well. For example, Welch cites the work of Robbie Robertson and The Band with their motifs of acknowledging a lost past while maintaining hope for the future.
Moving forward, Welch plans to continue exploring personal themes in his songwriting. He says, “I hope to continue to use my music as a channel, a way to channel the feelings that I have about whatever's going on in my life.”
Fans are encouraged to visit SamWelchBoston.com. There, listeners can also stream Welch’s entire 180-song catalog, including 15 albums over a 25-year recording history. They can also sign up for his newsletter, keep track of his performance schedule (including weekly performances at historic venues like Club Passim in Cambridge), and learn more about his creative process.
Listen to The Attic now, and follow Sam Welch at the links below:
Sam Welch’s Official Website
YouTube
Soundcloud
Spotify
Apple Music
Instagram
TikTok
ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
