Growing pains and unapologetic ambition link arms and face the future together on The Lathums’ emotionally supercharged second album, From Nothing To A Little Bit More, released today on Island Records. Tearing another page from the picture book of singer and songwriter, Alex Moore’s twenty-something life of love, loss and hard-won wisdom, the band celebrates the album’s release with a video for raucous love song and new single: Lucky Bean.
Joined by bandmates Scott Concepcion (guitar/piano), Ryan Durrans (drums) and Matty Murphy (bass) in the earnest storytelling and wry, eyebrow-arching observational song writing that covers the speeding rollercoaster turns and dead ends of twenty-something life, the four-piece’s follow up to 2021’s huge, debut album, How Beautiful Life Can Be, arrives backdropped by the band’s progression as a live band.
Recently announcing their biggest headline show to date, a summer night before 8,000 fans at Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl on Fri 30 June 2023, The Lathums direction of travel onstage and off can be heard across From Nothing To A Little Bit More’s ambitious production, enhanced instrumentation and impassioned lyrics.
Lucky Bean’sstory of dopamine-surging infatuation in the first flushes of romance is spliced with the knowledge that it remains a document of happier times, love’s sweetness having soured between writing and recording. Contained in a small house together as his break-up crossed over with studio time, the band became a ‘safe space’ and a vital source of counsel for Moore. Typical of The Lathums, every beat of a broken heart is made louder and festival-stage ready, concealing a moment pain in a rush of jangling, skiffle-pop splendour.
Moore says of the track:“It’s a song about love. Speaking of a doomed relationship at a time when I thought we’d be together forever and have kids. At the time I used to call that person my lucky bean.”
Once the flames have died down and the dancing has stopped, every song on From Nothing To A Little Bit More comes with life-lessons and illustrations of lived experience as the band simply try to work themselves out as people. Back in 2022, coinciding with the band’s first US Tour, The Lathums released the paint-stripping Sad Face Baby single, a visceral cry from the depths of a young soul to connect with others lost. At the time of release, Moore painted a picture of the rush of musical success and concurrent personal fracture by saying: “The Lathums has been a world of opportunity for us, but things still get to you. Naivety and innocence have been lost and ‘Sad Face Baby’ is the sharper edge of what we can do as a band.”
Expectations were set for a hardened version of The Lathums as rumours of a second album grew louder and the release of Say My Name in October 2022, finally revealing the album’s title and Brian Cannon-designed artwork at the same time, unleashed a track that did nothing to dispel the notion that the band had left behind the clean, accidentally 80’s bedroom-indie sound that had previously garnered comparisons to The Smiths and The Housemartins. Only by releasing the intensely introvert, piano and strings opus, Turmoil in December did the band reconfirm that their losses and loves and senses of anger and hope would be expressed in naturally-flowing, non-genre-specific song writing, free of predetermined concept and free to roam from punky, solo-heavy squall to intimate balladry.
Finding a through line between all sides of The Lathums, New Year single, Struggle combined the matured dexterity of the band with the most grown of Moore’s words to date, reflecting on the journey from profoundly troubled teen to becoming an adult, turning a corner into something resembling contentment. Concepcion’s now regular excursions from the guitar to piano and back again, expressing necessary tenderness when required and remorseless turned-to-eleven soloing in moments of welcome abandon, find a reliable framework on which to grow around in the form of Durrans’ expressive and accomplished percussion.
Handing the production reins to Jim Abbiss (Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Bombay Bicycle Club) with song-development support from long-standing confidante, John Kettle, the band turned disadvantage – performing on successive tours and on bigger stages with threadbare technical support, much as they had done in pubs – into advantage. Searching out the tools to make a statement album, the version of The Lathums that had made fields and big tops dance with just bass, guitar, drums and voice ensured that every second of From Nothing To A Little Bit More would benefit from the new opportunities afforded to them as an established, chart-challenging band.
Such is The Lathums’ confidence having seen ‘the rules of the game’ afresh and realising how much more they could achieve in their sound, a re-recording of early, self-released EP fan-favourite, Crying Out, makes its way onto album two, four years after its initial reveal. The Lathums is now a band improving on their past as well as crafting swaying, accomplished classic Motown girl group, finger-click and handclap-punctuated songs like I Know, rapid-fire, jangle-pop word-bombs such as Facets and the alluring, slow motion mariachi slither of Land And Sky.
Perhaps as heart breaking and breath-taking as any song Moore has written, album closer, Undeserving puts listeners in the close company of the 22-year-old boy-turned-man as he candidly sings of the route he’s taken and those that have joined him on the journey. As unvarnished and candid as any song can be, every line is left to be picked up by fans, understood and cherished. “It’s like I’m talking to people about what they’ve just listened to and what it all means,” Alex says. “It was like I was talking to someone. It all just fit…it freaked me out a bit.”
The Lathums follow up the release of Lucky Bean and From Nothing To A Little Bit More by heading immediately out on tour to some of the UK’s most prestigious venues including London’s Roundhouse and Manchester’s ornate Albert Hall. The dates, plus their summer special, are as follows:
Mon 6 Mar – Liverpool, Mountford Hall, Liverpool University – SOLD OUT
Tue 7 Mar – Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumbria Students Union
Thu 9 Mar – Sheffield, O2 Academy Sheffield – SOLD OUT
Fri 10 Mar – Glasgow, O2 Academy Glasgow – SOLD OUT
Sat 11 Mar – Manchester, Albert Hall – SOLD OUT
Mon 13 Mar – Norwich, The Waterfront – SOLD OUT
Tue 14 Mar – Cardiff, Cardiff University, Great Hall
Thu 16 Mar – Nottingham, Rock City
Fri 17 Mar – Birmingham, O2 Institute Birmingham – SOLD OUT
Sat 18 Mar – London, Roundhouse
Fri 30 Jun – Manchester, Castlefield Bowl
The opportunity to sign up for future announcements as well as booking links for any remaining tickets can be found on The Lathums Official website at www.thelathums.com
From Nothing To A Little Bit More has been released in a range of formats including standard black vinyl, limited fan-only coloured variants and a double-vinyl package including six, exclusive acoustic tracks recorded at Abbey Road, plus CD, cassette and digital packages.
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 and married my childhood sweetheart and life is good.
