The song uses the ‘House of Glass’ as a symbol of denial: a reflection of those in positions of  power who remain insulated by privilege while turning a blind eye to growing inequality. The track speaks to the idea that those with wealth and influence can see the problems clearly, yet choose not to meaningfully address them. The inspiration for ‘House of Glass’ came during a period of financial exhaustion while juggling multiple jobs in London, sparked by a chance encounter on the Tube. “I met a homeless man on the tube and because I didn’t have any change, I said: ‘I hope you have a nice day.’ He replied: ‘I gave up having hope a long time ago because hope is too heartbreaking.’ It really stayed with me”. One of the track’s defining lyrics — “Why does money roll, always seem to roll uphill?” — was written as a reflection on Britain’s widening class divide and the increasing imbalance between wealth and poverty.

Recorded in North London with Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer Guy Massey, the track embraces imperfection as part of its emotional core. “I like to record guitar and vocals at the same time to keep the rawness and vulnerability of my performance, we intentionally left small imperfections in the final mix — guitar buzzes, strings drifting slightly out of time — because I wanted it to feel off kilter and brooding.”

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A distinctively more rocky sound than the haunting ‘I Don’t Know How To Die’, the track showcases Patterson’s versatility as a songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. The track was recorded in the studio with Charlie Andrew (alt-J, David Gilmour) in pitch black – “The subject matter of the song is quite dark and we really wanted to match that with the atmosphere of the studio to try and get the best vocal performance out of me. I got one of my favourite drummers to come in Adam betts, AKA Colossal Squid, and my mate Leon Itzler on bass but everything else you hear on the track is played by me. The coolest sound on the song for me is a concertina that I wanted to turn into a deep sub by attaching a contact mic to it. It had all these cool overtones on it which produced this kind of fore-boding droney fog horn. I love working with Charlie because he’s always very open to my crazy production ideas.”

Inspired by the likes of Soundgarden, Black Hole Sun, TOOL, and The Cranberries, lyrically, the track is based on a newspaper article about a gruesome historical murder, found by my friend and old bandmate Nat. Patterson says, “I wondered what it would be like writing a song from the victim’s point of view, who asks Morticia, the personification of death, to piece him back together in the afterlife. At the time I was spending a lot of time in London, walking around London Bridge and Borough Market, imagining what this man’s life was like having fallen in with the wrong crowd and getting swept up in the dark underbelly of the city.

“I first learned music within the Irish folk tradition, listening to a lot of Dolores O’Riordan and I love the way she mixed traditional singing styles with grunge music. I hope people can hear my love of that kind of music in the song. It’s definitely the heaviest track I’ve put out so far and is a direction I’d love to explore more of.”

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