HALLELUJAH TRIAL - Hallelujah Trial

Format: LP
Catalogue No.: VIO088
Barcode: 5051142054142
Release Date: 16 Oct 2026
Genre: Singer-Songwriter/Alt-Folk/Americana

180g 12-inch vinyl LP, single edition of 250 copies worldwide, no re-press. INDIES ONLY. NON-RETURNABLE.

Hallelujah Trial is Tom Roberts (Cranebuilders, Beatowls) and John Canning Yates (Ella Guru): two Liverpool songwriters who knew each other for twenty years before they ever played a note together. Roberts brought a folder of songs to Yates' front room. Yates answered with piano. A weekly ritual of tea and talk became a repertoire, the repertoire became a debut performance at the final La Violette Società, and a few weeks later the songs became an album, recorded in May 2026 in the Gustav Adolf Church, the Scandinavian seamen's church on the edge of Liverpool's Baltic Triangle.

The sound is spacious, stripped back and gloriously melodic: voice, guitar and piano, songs in a room, storytelling that recalls Bill Callahan, Lee Hazlewood and the late Johnny Cash records. Yates' Ella Guru drew a Peel session and 'the best debut album since Marquee Moon' from the Independent on Sunday. Roberts' Cranebuilders recorded two Peel sessions of their own. The pedigree is genuine. The songs are better.

Recorded, mixed and produced by John Canning Yates. Mastered by Jason Mitchell (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). Sleeve by Pascal Blua, after a rose from William Turner's herbal of 1568. The closing 'Reprise' carries a hallelujah chorus of friends and family, recorded live in the church.

SIDE ONE 1 On Each Branch 2 Flowers In The Ruin 3 Together We Lost 4 Truth & Consequences 5 Ever Treat You Cruel Again

SIDE TWO 6 Days 7 Now We Are Less Afraid 8 Joy Is The Aim 9 Soft Tissue Injury 10 Rain For Roses 11 While We May All 12 Reprise