Dresden the new single from The Slow Show on Haldern Pop Recordings is inspired by the band’s adventures while visiting the city on tour (“dark, dark tales from the Dresden dens”) it’s the first to be taken from White Water, The Slow Show’s long-awaited debut album due for release March 2015. Recorded over the past year in Blueprint Studios in Manchester (where Elbow record), White Water is the first UK release on German label Haldern Pop Recordings, the label formed by the team behind the successful Haldern Pop Festival.

There’s never been a band from Manchester quite like The Slow Show, who’s minimal but epic songs swell from gentle piano-led Americana to roaring choruses with string and brass sections. These deeply personal songs about love and death have reduced audiences to hushed silence, even tears. Despite being under the radar in their hometown and only releasing one low-key EP, 2012’s Brother, they have found champions at BBC 6Music and Radio 2 and have played in Europe to large, sold out audiences. The band’s use of choirs and a colliery brass band gives them a distinctly northern sound, but singer Rob Goodwin’s deep, heartbreaking baritone sounds more like a distant relation of Johnny Cash than anything from the English North West.

Together since 2010, The Slow Show have, fittingly, given their name, taken their time over recording their debut. Like all good things, White Water has been worth the wait. These are deeply intimate songs yet with themes that strike a universal chord. Throughout, the words delivered with tenderness, care and empathy.