Seafret haunt the heart on rich new track "Wait"

The Yorkshire-based duo Seafret is back, not with a whisper, but a spectral roar for their latest single, "Wait." Their date for a special show at The Crescent in York this May was announced just yesterday. Now Seafret has released "Wait" like a message in a bottle through the mist: wistful, urgent, and hard to ignore. It's a haunting folk-rock ballad that slinks its way into your ears until you're eventually all in.

There's a heaviness from the very beginning, the sort that sits in your chest. Jack Sedman's emoting is not just powerful; it's inexorable. Nothing is tucked away in this voice; it is raw and tremulous in the best possible way, as if it had been living in his throat for years and had finally found the right moment to wriggle free.

And then there is the chorus, a cantering, nearly galloping wave that lifts you and runs with you. It's the sort of chorus that you find stuck in your brain for days, not because it's a catchy, commercial pundit but because you feel like you've lived it. Harry Draper's guitar work drones like an echo in another place, winding up the atmosphere with every note.

"Wait" is not a song that wallows, but it aches, and there's a finer distinction. It's the sound of waiting for someone who might never come back, but standing in that space anyway, because it feels good to do that, and sometimes that's enough. Joining them on the York date is new Dutch folk-pop talent néomí, which makes it all the more one to look forward to. Between a lineup like that, May 11 at The Crescent is on course to be one of those nights where there's electricity in the air and the music is felt and lived through from start to finish, and you'll remember every minute of it.