Max Rael’s ‘The Enemy Is Us’ is one of 2025’s most interesting albums. Its blend of often melodic electronica and synth based sounds with spoken word, confessional lyrics is really striking. It has taken Rael’s experimentalism with Decommisioned Forests somewhere more accessible, but without feeling remotely in tune with the mainstream.
As part of the album’s ongoing promotion — this really is the kind of album that’ll only reach it’s audience through committed word of mouth — Max has shared a new video for one of the record’s more accessible tracks.
The album version of ‘Almost’ has a bleak quality, driven by a dark synth tone. The single version actually provides a fresh take, with a bigger sound, and even a more dance oriented rhythm. The vocals are set back much futher in the mix, but musically, it has a buoyancy that makes it potentially a little more accessible than before. Also, in a very clever twist, the vocal actually becomes a little more audible towards the end of the track, when Max starts to share a more positive outlook, as if his uncertainly is lifting.
Regarding the new single version, Max says: “I felt the album version didn’t quite do it justice, so wanted to revisit it and rearrange it for the single. Then my son Caden Clarkson did a fresh mix and added some additional ideas, and now I’m very happy with it.
It’s actually a track with a long history. Max elaborates: “‘Almost’, started life many years ago in I think 2012. My friend Laura had sadly committed suicide, and in the aftermath of grief and frustration I felt I needed to just do something. I decided as someone who didn’t like heights that I would do a parachute jump in Laura’s honour. I would pay for the jump myself and ask people to donate money to the Mind charity. The day came and I went up to do the jump, and did the morning of training, but then it was decided it was too windy to go ahead, so disappointed, drove back home. I went into my little studio and, pretty much in one session, completed the instrumental, ‘Failure to Reach the Skies’. It’s very bittersweet, caught between the joy of my love for my friend Laura and the desolation of her loss, combined with feelings of frustration and failure.
“Years later it was one of the first tracks I picked when I was looking back at some of my unreleased stuff and making a vague shape for a solo album. When it came to write the lyrics, I wanted to make it about something more universal, that moment when you think something you’ve been planning for a long time and put a lot of work into, that you really believe it going to work out, fails at the last moment. And how that crushing defeat can turn into anger and self-recrimination. I always think depression is anger turned inwards, and the moment of defeated hopes and plans seemed like a potential gateway for that defensive coping strategy that is ultimately harmful, “Who am I to even think things were actually going to work out for me this time? That just isn’t what happens. I should learn by now never to get my hopes up. I am such an idiot.” etc. Which can be the start of a depressive spiral.“
As for the album itself, and the audience it has found, Max has “...been bowled over by how well the album has been going! I definitely had moments of doubt before releasing as to whether anyone would be interested, so the fact it’s being picked up by so many people and places is amazing and I keep having to pinch myself to remind myself that it is real.”
