Introducing: Saint Senara

Stormy, seductive, and steeped in southern gothic atmosphere, Saint Senara return with Dark Water EP—a brooding new chapter that plunges deep into the duo’s most cinematic and experimental sound yet. Known for their genre-defying fusion of blues rock, Americana, and haunting folk, Andrew Bate and Chloe Gorman have carved out a space where poetic lyricism meets raw, elemental energy.

Following the critical acclaim of their Under My Skin EP, this new release—featuring standout tracks like There's A Storm Coming and Ophelia—sees the award-winning pair summon ghosts, storms and shadowy landscapes from the depths of White Noise Studios. With lashings of whipcracks, eerie Ebow lines, and haunting harmonies, Dark Water EP is Saint Senara at their most fearless and atmospheric. We caught up with them to dive beneath the surface.

1. Dark Water EP feels like a bold step deeper into your southern gothic sound—what drew you both toward this darker, more cinematic territory?

We are both goths at heart so it's been a lot of fun really leaning into that darker side of us—and I think it's given us a unique edge in the UK blues and country music scene especially. We were both keen to highlight 'Lost Lisa Marie' as part of this release, both as a standalone single and as part of the EP. It's a song that Andrew wrote many moons ago and is really precious to him, so when we made the decision to do a version of 'Lost Lisa Marie' together, we knew that we had to do it justice and create the essential version of the song that Andrew had always wanted to make.

'Lost Lisa Marie' is such a standout song, especially when we play it live, so it was really important that the other songs on the EP were just as moody and atmospheric, but in their own way, and with the help of our incredible producer Lex Raymond, we think we've achieved that. 

2. You’ve mentioned using unconventional percussion like whips, chains, and stomps in the studio—can you walk us through one of those recording sessions and how it shaped a particular track?

The recording sessions down at White Noise were a wild ride. Notably we don't have a drummer, so rather than bringing in a guest drummer like we did on our 'Under My Skin EP', we set ourselves the challenge of achieving that driving rhythm with anything but drums—and boy did Lex rise to it.

The rules were off the table, so whatever ideas we had, we tried them, just to see what would happen. For 'There's A Storm Coming' and 'Lost Lisa Marie' we did all sorts of crazy stuff. We hit a guitar case with a beater, put a chain in a bag and threw it to each other, hammered on the metal studio shutters, danced around a mic with Indian bells, stamped our feet on a piece of staging, hell Lex even threw in a castanet, which sounds utterly insane, but it totally works.

Andrew had a Vox AC30 cranked up to record the guitar parts, we even recorded some vocal harmonies together on either side of a Voodoo ribbon mic to create this Dune-inspired vocal effect. The result ended up being a really cinematic sound world with so many layers to it, but still with Saint Senara's signature stomping beat and filthy Gretch guitar at the centre.

For 'Ophelia' we did the complete opposite. We recorded the whole song live in the studio together, just a guitar and two voices, and the production on that one is very minimal, but again it captures this rawness that feels like it's become an integral part of our sound. We've even had people comment that they feel like they're intruding on an intimate moment with that one and, in a way, they are. What you're hearing is two people playing a song to each other, looking into one another's eyes. 

3. There's a strong visual and lyrical thread running through your work—storms, lost characters, wild seas. Do you approach songwriting with a narrative in mind, or does the imagery emerge more instinctively?

We're both very much influenced by the gothic literary tradition, so we use a lot of dark imagery, allegory and atmosphere in our writing. 'Ophelia' of course takes its name and a lot of inspiration from the character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, who we very much believe gets done dirty in the play! She's also the inspiration for some of our favourite works of art—we have a print of Paul Steck's Ophelia on our gallery wall at home—so there's a lot that we draw upon in our creative process.

Chloe's background is poetry, so she's always thinking of the words first and looking for the very best way to express what we want to say, that's also pleasurable to sing. Andrew comes from a theatre background so music had always been tied to a mood and a scene. He tends to find the melody first and has a real knack for finding unconventional but really satisfying chord progressions and harmonies that we then build the song around. 

For some songs, like 'Flowers On My Grave' for example, the lyrics and the chords came freely entirely in one session—the song almost felt like it wrote itself—but for others it's very much more considered. There's A Storm Coming' took a few months to write. It was inspired by the time we opened for Elles Bailey and a few minutes before the doors were due to open for the gig, there was an apocalyptic rainstorm. Both of us had, independently of each other, come up with this line 'There's A Storm Coming'—and it wasn't until afterwards that we realised we'd both thought of the same melody for the line. It was like magic, it's so rare for that to happen, but we knew we had something special so we really took our time over the rest of the lyrics and the arrangement because we wanted to create something really impressive. Both of us think it's up there as one of the best songs we've written together so far.

4. With just the two of you and a stripped-back setup, how do you create such a rich, atmospheric sound both on record and live?

We both really love experimenting in the studio and trying out new and unconventional ideas, but we're also both very passionate about making sure the finished product still sounds like us. When we play live, Andrew literally carries the songs along with a stomp box and his incredible rhythm guitar, and it's very much his unique playing style and the tone he achieves with the Gretsch and our trusty Vox amp that gives us this huge sound.

We've been singing together for long enough now that we've also got these near-familial close harmonies going on which play an important role in so many of our songs. That's not just something we record in the isolation of the studio, our vocal harmonies really take centre stage when we play live, too.

5. You’ve been compared to When Rivers Meet and The Civil Wars, but Dark Water EP really feels like it’s carving out its own lane. How do you define what makes a Saint Senara track yours?

There are a few really core elements that make up a Saint Senara song—a poetic approach to lyricism is part of it, as are our close vocal harmonies, but there's also a good dose of rawness and grit, much of which comes from Andrew's unique guitar playing and the subject matter that we choose to sing about. 

We don't tend to write confessional songs directly about our own lives or personal experiences, but we don't shy away from the human experience—many of our songs deal with love, death, sex, religion—and this seems to be the thing that gives us a unique connection with our audience.

It took us a while to really nail down what was an 'us' song and what wasn't, but now we're there it feels quite instinctual. When we've got 'something'—be that a chord progression on the guitar or the start of some lines in a notebook—without wanting to sound too much like a psychic medium, a lot of it is vision. Being able to see or hear where it could go both musically and lyrically is important. There's a lot of trust involved when writing with someone, a lot of 'go with me on this, I promise it'll work', and that's the wonderful thing about creating something that's never existed before, it takes you to this new place.But honestly, so much of being an artist is just asking each other 'is this a thing?' and hoping that it is.