The Little Unsaid – Stay Fragile Across This Cold Frontier: Album Review

By Howard King on 2nd October 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

With their latest release – Stay Fragile Across This Cold Frontier – The Little Unsaid create a luscious, melodic masterpiece.

Release Date: 26th September 2025

Label: Carbon Moon Records

Format: CD / LP / Digital

Born from musical ideas which spring from the moment and combine their thoughts, The Little Unsaid have a totally unique way to produce an album. Since their inception ten years ago, never let it be said that The Little Unsaid have sought to be mainstream.

Indeed, what appears to be a fragile conception is actually their strength. The opening track Strangers may have the delicacy and intricacy we expect but delve deeper and each layer they build into their compositions is completely sound. Hypnotic vocals, feather light keyboards and gentle rhythmical precision combine to create music of intense, luxurious beauty.

MORE YEARNING

The vocals may be more yearning and the instrumentation emerges into something more dynamic further on the the next track but the swirling strings added to Song Of The Unforeseen adds to the enchanting impact of their music. Says John:“The album is about frontiers – actual journeys we make crossing into some new landscape of our lives, a new chapter, but it’s also about the frontiers within us that we have no choice but to cross if we want to move on.”

The title track completely exemplifies the desperation of loss but John Elliot urges us “don’t harden, don’t close off to this wondrous world outside and within yourself. When we close off to the shadows we close ourselves.”

DRIVING TEMPO

A far more driving tempo is set on Surfacing, showing how the band has far more than one string to their bow, with searing electronic effects and a tribal percussive beat with some screaming . A dreamy almost psychedelic vibe emanates on Sea Wall State Of Mind but the fuller sound overwhelms you powerfully and draws you in. The percussion may follow a more intricate time signature but there is evidence of each group member adding their own musical ideas yet it is far from a mish mash of confusing ideas but in Shadows Are Where The Truth Gets Told reveals John’s poetical enlightenment.

The Little Unsaid leave us with two tracks tracks of sheer beauty. There is an underlying tension in the music but celestial vocals makes their music meditative, luxuriously languid and shimmeringly beguiling. From what sounds like they have begun with a musical blank page they have created beautifully tailored music which rewards your concentration with exquisite melodies.

Here’s a little live The Little Unsaid: