CHRIS MARDULA – Single Review: “Angels & Demons”

This past April, I featured British singer-songwriter Chris Mardula, an earnest and talented guy from Durham County in Northeast England, in an Artist Spotlight. To briefly summarize, his music style is strongly influenced by elements of folk, indie rock and blues. A seasoned musician, he’s played in several bands over the years, but often feeling frustrated by uneven levels of commitment by other members, he decided to go it alone as a solo artist. In November 2022, Chris began releasing singles at the rate of one per month, and has now dropped his 8th single “Angels & Demons“.

A hauntingly beautiful piano ballad, “Angels & Demons” is a very personal song for Chris, and was inspired by the recent passing of his father. The song touches on memories from his childhood, when he was too young to understand his father’s struggles with depression and alcoholism brought on by his own tough upbringing. His father (Chris’s grandfather) was a Polish World War II veteran who’d escaped from a concentration camp and fled to England to start a new life. Witnessing unimaginable things, like having his family wiped out during the war, left him with emotional scars that were sadly passed down to Chris’s father. In the song, Chris uses angels and demons as metaphors to help him understand his father’s actions more clearly: “We need to understand why people are the way they are, as everyone is fighting battles we don’t know about or understand, unless we are in their shoes. Everyone has good and bad in them, and sometimes we need to face things head-on and try and deal with them to stop going down the wrong path. Everyone does things with good intentions and usually for self preservation.”

For the recording of the song, Chris played the somber piano riff and edgy, mournful guitar riff that arrives halfway through the track, while Ben Young, who produced the track, played the haunting string arrangements. Chris’s heartfelt vocals are filled with emotion as he wistfully sings “When you’re lost in the mayhem. When you’re lost in your mind. We’ve all got angels and demons. We’ve all got to face them sometimes.” It’s a lovely, deeply moving song.

The heartwarming video includes stock footage that helps convey the sentiments expressed in the lyrics, interspersed with old family photos featuring Chris’s dad in the second half.