SONS OF RAPHAEL

Sons of Raphael are brothers Loral and Ronnel Raphael from London.

Seven years in the making, their debut album, featuring singles "Revolution" and "He Who Makes The Morning Darkness", is a sci fi wall of sound, an orchestral fantasia that blossoms into a psych pop explosion. "Full Throated Messianic Homage", was written, arranged and produced by Loral & Ronnel, and mixed by Philippe Zdar. Much of the lo-fi clatter and fizz of Ronnel’s dorm-recorded demos can be heard on 2018’s EP, A Nation Of Bloodsuckers (check the video for Eating People to see what happened before they were booted out of Clifton College’s chapel and told they were going to hell), but for Full Throated Messianic Homage they knew they needed something grander. Ronnel plunged into the depths of his soul to contemplate the eternal riddles of the universe - God and man, life and death, joy and despair, rock and roll - while Loral ducked and dived to make those visions flesh. It was a journey that took them from the living room of Serge Gainsbourg’s string arranger (the band instead opted to arrange, score and produce everything themselves) to LA’s Vox Studios where a team crack session musicians stormed out of the sessions (“Every single one of them ended up being our friend in the end,” insists Ronnel), Motorbass in Paris and back home to London, where a fortuitous punt on an NBA game landed them enough cash to record a 35-piece orchestra and choir. “Gambling is a dirty game”, warns Loral, “but it did finance a lot of the orchestra.” Cock an ear and you might be able to make out Frank Sinatra’s drum set, Brian Wilson’s vibraphone or an echo unit once owned by Quincy Jones within the album’s cinematic crash and sparkle. But this is not retrogressive music. Under the tutelage of sadly departed sonic visionary Philipe Zdar, these songs glisten and swoop like starships gliding through the cosmos. Picture an Elvis chapel in a far off astral plane, Ronnel and Loral stood atop a sci-fi wall of sound, proselytising a new soul vision. A saxophone solo squeals around the industrial clank of a drum machine, an orchestral fantasia blossoms into a psych pop explosion, synthesisers bubble away as a cosmic wind blows through Old Testament sands. Chapter One: A Revolt Against Time, Space And History; Chapter Two: A Modest Contribution To Romance; Chapter Three: Life As A Mere Platform For Death; Chapter Four: A Resurrection. It’s that final passage that is perhaps is the most powerful. The band’s time with Zdar in Paris reignited their faith in the rejuvenating, life-affirming power that music can have, inspiring the beatific sweep of closer, The Sand Dunes Lift Up. Now Sons Of Raphael are here to share that vision. It’s one that takes in the whole joyous, heart-crushing sweep of human existence. Take a pew, you’d be mad not to.