Liverpool-born singer-songwriter Paul Claxton returns with his brand-new single โLeft Haunting You,โ released on September 5 under Trifle Too Hot Records. Known for his sweeping blend of nostalgia and sharp storytelling, Claxton draws from a well of influences ranging from Roy Orbison and Lennon & McCartney to Dusty Springfield, Gram Parsons, and Motownโs golden era. Recorded at Buffalo Studios earlier this year with producer JB Pilon, the track once again has Claxton going all 60s Americana, this time with soulful pop and shades of 80s New Wave, all while letting his intimate vocals shine front and center.
From the very first bars, โLeft Haunting Youโ glimmers with vintage warmth. The guitars shimmer like sunlit glass, layered over percussion that rattles and shakes with a steady heartbeat, while the drums thump forward in rich, analog tones. Claxtonโs high, delicate voice enters tenderly, with vulnerability, before rising with the kind of hopeless romanticism that makes his phrasing swell. When he sings, โTell me, when you close your eyes, do you dream of me?โ saying everything about how a confession suspended in midair, stings with longing because the answer may never come.
The song gradually expands into a lush, almost cinematic wall of sound, with harmonies folding over one another and basslines grounding the atmosphere. Midway, a melodic, soulful, and perfectly measured electric guitar solo cuts through, like a voice of its own, carrying the songโs melancholy into something nearly transcendent.
โLeft Haunting Youโ is Claxton at his most evocative, an artist channeling retro spirits in his tender bittersweetness. Listen to it on Spotify.
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Review by: Naomi Joan