Oxford’s Hieronymus are another band I discovered through Peoplesound later discovering they were a little bigger than they first appeared but then virtually disappearing. I don’t really know that much about them. They’re tight, they performed around the Oxford gig circuits, released Alone in This Tree in 2003 followed up with Save the Day in 2006 and yeah…that’s it. Victims of both digital music proliferation and the early noughties great music heist.
I’m not sure who, possibly former work colleague Tim Worthington, recently lamented on social media how the advent of the Great Download Free-for-All and accessibility to an unstructured, unguided global catalogue of music often meant that up and coming bands came and faded immediately from memory citing the likes of Gravenhurst, Clearlake and Madasun as examples of bands who were everywhere then seemingly vanishing from cultural memory.
I guess Hieronymus was a victim of that time too. In “normal” times, they would have sky rocketed – NME, Music Maker and even Just Seventeen would have featured them. Now perhaps only those who saw them play in the Three Horseshoes in Witney might vaguely recall them, discovering the bands CD they bought out of support when clearing out the junkroom.
The tracks on Alone in this Tree are better produced than the 40% of tracks that were released on the Peoplesound sampler I originally owned. Lyrically, there’s a level of perverse humour, musically a really great blend of influences such as Blondie and Transvision Vamp but toned down to dreamy levels. My all time favourite song is Clueless – a lyrical tour de force about either a dog being abandoned or one overly devoted half of a relationship who is in an abusive relationship.
Sadly all that remains of the band online are a few videos on Youtube, this album, their other album Save the Day, a mention in local music press and an entry in the abc directory which links to their long disabled website. It doesn’t help that their band name has poor SEO clashing with at least two other international bands using derivatives of the name Hieronymus but at least there’s the music project entry you are reading right now.
Stegzy's Music Project
Alone in This Tree – Hieronymus [#676]
by stegzy on August 11, 2026Oxford’s Hieronymus are another band I discovered through Peoplesound later discovering they were a little bigger than they first appeared but then virtually disappearing. I don’t really know that much about them. They’re tight, they performed around the Oxford gig circuits, released Alone in This Tree in 2003 followed up with Save the Day in 2006 and yeah…that’s it. Victims of both digital music proliferation and the early noughties great music heist.
I’m not sure who, possibly former work colleague Tim Worthington, recently lamented on social media how the advent of the Great Download Free-for-All and accessibility to an unstructured, unguided global catalogue of music often meant that up and coming bands came and faded immediately from memory citing the likes of Gravenhurst, Clearlake and Madasun as examples of bands who were everywhere then seemingly vanishing from cultural memory.
I guess Hieronymus was a victim of that time too. In “normal” times, they would have sky rocketed – NME, Music Maker and even Just Seventeen would have featured them. Now perhaps only those who saw them play in the Three Horseshoes in Witney might vaguely recall them, discovering the bands CD they bought out of support when clearing out the junkroom.
The tracks on Alone in this Tree are better produced than the 40% of tracks that were released on the Peoplesound sampler I originally owned. Lyrically, there’s a level of perverse humour, musically a really great blend of influences such as Blondie and Transvision Vamp but toned down to dreamy levels. My all time favourite song is Clueless – a lyrical tour de force about either a dog being abandoned or one overly devoted half of a relationship who is in an abusive relationship.
Sadly all that remains of the band online are a few videos on Youtube, this album, their other album Save the Day, a mention in local music press and an entry in the abc directory which links to their long disabled website. It doesn’t help that their band name has poor SEO clashing with at least two other international bands using derivatives of the name Hieronymus but at least there’s the music project entry you are reading right now.
Available on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/gb/album/alone-in-this-tree/138327167
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Posted in 2003, Cold Chapel Records, Hieronymus, Peoplesound
Tags: Alone in this tree, commentary, Hieronymus, music, music project, Music tastes, Oxford, reviews