Life release new single from forthcoming album
Following the recent announcement of their highly anticipated third album –‘North East Coastal Town’ – LIFE return today with “The Drug”, the third single to be unveiled, which sees the band lean further still into the more intricate textures and subtle idiosyncrasies that they explore on the new record. With punchy, biting vocals and angular, dynamic guitar work, the track carries the band’s much-loved trademark hook-heavy sound.
The accompanying video (directed by long-term collaborator Luke Hallett & drummer Stewart Baxter) features various artists and friends from the creative community within Shirethorn House; a commune of artists who have taken residency in the derelict building in Hull’s city centre.
Speaking on the new single vocalist Mez Green says: “The Drug is a love song. I wrote the lyrics in the cold mountains of Italy before taking them into the room with the band. ''The Drug I needed has always been here, the drug I needed has always been near'' is, for me, realising that loved ones and those that love you, no matter where you are, can always be present. I'd never really believed this before and whilst this purity is at the lyrical heart of the song musically the band decided to inject flecks of dance, pop, harmonics, and dirty pulses to give the song drive, repetition and jerk-ability.”
“The Drug” is the follow-up single to “Big Moon Lake”, which was announced alongside the details of the new album and is currently playlisted at BBC 6 Music as well as various European radio stations. The band also shared an album track at the tail end of last year called “Friends Without Names” which also amassed popular support across BBC 6 Music resulting in an A-List addition.
The band will be performing a run of instore dates the week of release followed by a local celebration in Hull on Sat 3 September at The Social. Summer festival dates include recently announced dates at BST Hyde Park supporting Pearl Jam, Sea Power’s Krankenhaus festival in the Lakes, and Mad Cool Sunset Festival in Madrid. UK & EU album tours will follow in the Autumn – full listings below.
WATCH / SHARE “THE DRUG” HERE
“North East Coastal Town” will be released on 19 August 2022 via the Liquid Label – Pre-order HERE
Live dates:
Tickets for all shows: https://www.lifeband.co.uk/
8 July – BST @ Hyde Park w/ Pearl Jam, London
13th July – Colours of Ostrava, Czech Republic
8th Sep – Big Festival, Andalucia
10th Sep – Mad Cool Sunset, Madrid
Album release in-stores:
19th Aug – Record Junkee, Sheffield (7pm)
22nd Aug – The Vinyl Whistle, Headingley (1pm) / Jumbo, Leeds (3.30pm) / Crash, Leeds (6pm
23rd Aug – Rough Trade Bristol
24th Aug – Parade Vibes, Watford (1pm) / Rough Trade East, London (7pm)
25th Aug – Pie & Vinyl, Southsea (1pm) / Resident, Brighton (6pm)
UK Tour:
3rd Sept – Album launch party at The Social, Hull
3rd Oct – The Cluny, Newcastle
4th Oct – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
5th Oct – Mash House, Edinburgh
6th Oct – The Deaf Institute, Manchester
7th Oct – Bootleg Social, Blackpool
8th Oct – Bodega, Nottingham
10th Oct – The Fleece, Bristol
11th Oct - Patterns, Brighton
12th Oct – Scala, London
14th Oct – Joiners, Southampton
EU Tour:
27th Sept – Confort Modern, Poitiers
28th Sept – Rock School Barbey, Bordeaux
29th Sept – Astrolabe, Orleans
30th Sept – Point Ephemere, Paris
17th Oct – Blueshell, Cologne
18th Oct – Molotow Club, Hamburg
20th Oct – Café V Lese, Prague
21st Oct – Rocking Chair, Switzerland
22nd Oct – Arci Bellezza, Milan
23rd Oct – Freakout, Bologna
25th Oct – Hole 44, Berlin
26th Oct – Merelyn, Nigmegen
27th Oct – Rotown, Rotterdam
28th Oct – ACU, Utrecht
29th Oct – London Calling Festival, Amsterdam
LIFE
North East Coastal Town
1. Friends Without Names
2. Big Moon Lake
3. Incomplete
4. Almost Home
5. Duck Egg Blue
6. Shipping Forecast
7. Poison
8. Self Portrait
9. The Drug
10. Our Love Is Growing
11. All You Are
LIFE are a band anchored by the city of Hull – it’s geography, history and community has always inspired their creativity and with this new record they pay homage to their beloved city and it’s folk.
When discussing the concept of “North East Coastal Town”, vocalist Mez Green said:
“Hull and the surrounding area runs through our DNA and has shaped us, weathered us, empowered us, embraced us and made us feel accepted.
North East Coastal Town is our love letter to the city. The album is an ode to kinship and relationship with its musical and lyrical spine picking out themes of love, desire, beauty, horror, chaos, pride and most importantly the sense of belonging.
It’s a reflective body of work dedicated to people and place and those that have always been there and made us feel like we belong.
Upon writing and recording this album it was important to us that this sense of belonging was also reflected in the album’s craft and therefore we used locally based studios, equipment, gear, and the community around us to establish what it means to belong in a North East Coastal Town.”
Selected praise for LIFE:
"Every song LIFE put their name to has electricity coursing through it’s veins’’ – CLASH
"This raging, unrelenting dose of sonic chaos is a thunderous reminder of why guitar music is the worlds greatest creation" – Dork (4/5)
“this record is indispensable” – DIY (4.5/5)
“a wiry outpouring of internalised frustrations” – The Most Radicalist
“Thoroughly satisfying, a tremendously inspiring album.” - Louder than War
“A stand-out record” – The Line Of Best Fit (8.5/10)
“A beautiful piece of work that deserves our attention” – IDLES
“tightly wound guitars and lyrical zingers combine for maximum '80s Peel session effect” – MOJO (4/5)
"It's the album the Hull punks deserve" – Upset (4/5)
“One of the only saving graces of the omnishambles of a time we live in is the emergence of bands that have something to be genuinely angry about. Few bands better epitomise that than LIFE” – NARC (4.5/5)
“It’s a ripper, as the shrill synth-tone guitar that accents the high-end vocals somehow also serves as a stand-in down beat.”- Stereogum
“a dose of Brutalist post-punk that refuses to pull its punches.”– CLASH