IT’S OUT! Red Rum Club release new album PLUS ‘Afternoon’ video!

February 27, 2024
UK Music News
by Desh Kapur UK-Editor/Photographer

Arena-bound upbeat indie favourites, Red Rum Club mark the release of fourth album, Western Approaches, with hangover-beating bop…

AFTERNOON

Singing the remnants of their riotous, coast-to-coast US Tours, the Liverpool six-piece’s latest track was penned in Texan heat

Red Rum Club’s new album, Western Approaches, is released ahead of SOLD-OUT UK TOUR dates and instore appearances

Red Rum Club – WESTERN APPROACHES
OUT NOW on Modern Sky UK
UK TOUR begins 7 March / M&S Bank Arena on 5 April
Album Orders & Ticket Links at www.redrumclub.com

11 tracks of open-hearted, observational poetry met with melodies that move feet, minds and hearts are released to the world as irrepressible indie six-piece, Red Rum Club present their fourth album, Western Approaches – OUT NOW. Tracing their transatlantic successes, the Liverpool-based big-stage party starters pull focus to the bass-heavy, riffy pop of ‘upbeat bop’, Afternoon, which was written in the shades on, blinds down haze of hangovers earned in Austin, Texas.

Seeing no limits to where their music can take them, least of all the gap of the Atlantic Ocean, the band’s repeated visits to meet with fans in the US has given them more than enough encouragement to follow their dreams. In choosing Western Approaches as a title for their fourth album, following 2022’s Top 40-charting How To Steal The World, they reference their home city’s indelible, historic links to the rest of the world, a tradition they are taking forward in their border-free, genre-hopping songwriting.

Working with hit-making producer, Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Courteeners, The Coral) on their latest album, the flood of grittier, burnished songs came to the band amidst the ruins of Liverpool’s industrial past. A new rehearsal room, a former docklands den of iniquity, offered the backdrop of brooding streets and dramatic, sea-meeting skies from which songs like recent single, Hole In My Home, emerged.

In the case of Afternoon, the band – made up of Francis Doran (vocals), Tom Williams (guitar, backing vocals), Michael McDermott (guitar, backing vocals), Simon Hepworth (bass guitar), Neil Lawson (drums, percussion), and Joe Corby (trumpet) – found inspiration as the night turned to day, and back to night, while on tour far from home.

Doran, says: “’Afternoon’ is an upbeat bop written in Austin, Texas after we found ourselves in a hazy limbo, trying to define when the night ended and the morning began.”

Recorded on Merseyside in its entirety, Western Approaches gave up its first single back in summer 2023 when the band ‘leaked’ the statement of intent that was Black Cat.

Taking overflowing pride in their confident ascent as documentarians of not only the life they are living as socially-active twenty-somethings, but the lives of their good time-hunting twenty-something listeners, the vivid pictures painted on melody-rich, second single, Undertaker, denied the otherwise morbid-sounding title. The filmic Dick Dale and Ennio Morricone-twang of the follow-up, Godless, brought drama to the table, setting expectations for the album at heights the band was always sure of meeting.

Red Rum Club come face to face with those fun-seeking fans through March on a run of UK-wide dates that are now largely SOLD OUT, with April bringing their biggest show to date – a homecoming at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena. Adding in a run of intimate instore dates which got underway ahead of their album’s release and continue onwards into the following week, all upcoming UK appearances by the band are as follows:

Thu 7 Mar – Glasgow, The Garage – SOLD OUT
Fri 8 Mar – Newcastle, Newcastle University
Sat 9 Mar – Stoke, Sugarmill – SOLD OUT
Sun 10 Mar – Leeds, Stylus
Tue 12 Mar – London, Scala – SOLD OUT
Wed 13 Mar – Bristol, Trinity
Thu 14 Mar – Plymouth, Depo
Fri 15 Mar – Southampton, Engine Rooms – SOLD OUT
Sat 16 Mar – Birmingham, Academy Institute 2 – SOLD OUT
Mon 18 Mar – Cambridge, Junction – SOLD OUT
Tue 19 Mar – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms – SOLD OUT
Fri 5 Apr – Liverpool, M&S Bank Arena

Album orders, bundles, booking links and information on all upcoming shows and releases are available at www.redrumclub.com.

Last month Red Rum Club were announced as ambassadors of Bootle’s new outdoor music and events venue, Salt and Tar. Having played and sold-out the venue on the banks of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal last summer, their ambassadorship is set to lead to further, to-be-announced appearances at the venue. The pioneering partnership got underway as the band filmed the video for Hole In My Home in flats now vacated for demolition as Salt and Tar plans to go from a 3,000-capacity to making room for 8,000 music lovers.

Western Approaches has been released on standard and special edition, direct to fans and independent shops vinyl formats, CD and digital formats.

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Desh Kapur UK-Editor/Photographer

My life is a soundtrack, i track my life through music, photography is my passion, my escape, my expression. Without both i have pieces missing, thankfully i’m blessed and get to combine both.
Born in Manchester, lived in Australia for 22 years where i was heavily involved in the Australian Music Industry, firstly in bands (Singer) and then managing bands (all original), I moved back to the UK, Wales specifically 10 years ago

IT’S OUT! Red Rum Club release new album PLUS ‘Afternoon’ video!

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