David Ell lets the nightmare slowly give way to light on new album 'Haunting Times'

There's this strong sense of psychological movement running through David Ell's fourth album 'Haunting Times'. Across ten tracks, the Scottish singer-songwriter and composer builds a loose journey from dream and distortion through anxiety and confrontation towards something closer to awakening. That structure gives the record a clear identity, even as it moves between alt-rock, pro-rock, quieter acoustic passages and more cinematic textures.

Here, he uses dreams and nightmares as a way of examining a world that can feel increasingly unfamiliar. Childhood memories collide with adult fears, recognisable places begin to distort, and the boundary between internal anxiety and external reality becomes deliberately uncertain.

Focus track 'Falling Down' captures that tension particularly well. By placing the innocence of a familiar nursery rhyme against themes of division, instability and vulnerability, the song turns something recognisable into something more unsettling. It also introduces the idea that people may imagine themselves as separate, but remain deeply affected by what happens to one another.

From there, 'The Haunting' explores that psychological unease more directly, while 'Vampires' uses supernatural imagery to examine ideas of control. 'No Cure For This' offers a more intimate acoustic contrast, preventing the album from becoming too uniformly heavy, before 'Lionheart' turns towards resilience and the more fragile aspects of the human condition.

But its the final stretch that gives the record its sense of progression. 'Ignite My Soul' shifts towards something more openly resistant and anthemic, while closing track 'Ascension' brings the journey to a quieter conclusion, allowing the album to settle into a more atmospheric sense of release.

For all its nightmares, distortion and uncertainty, 'Haunting Times' is ultimately about what comes after fear. David Ell spends much of the record wandering through the strange landscape of the subconscious, but importantly, he still leaves a route back towards the light.