The Slow Readers Club Announce New Album
- Published in News
Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club have announced their fourth album, The Joy Of The Return, out on March 20 via Modern Sky UK. The band have also shared their new single, ‘All I Hear’, the first track to be taken from the album, alongside details of an extensive tour starting in March.
Opening to an energetic blend of driving drums and infectious guitar lines, the track builds through evocative verses and anthemic choruses, imbued with their idiosyncratic brand of insightful and confronting lyricism and set against relentlessly danceable and energy-provoking instrumentation, and premiered with Chris Hawkins on BBC 6Music. “‘All I Hear’ is about a lack of agency and an inability to affect change. That there’s something happening, and you have no choice but to go along with it,” explains singer Aaron Starkie.
Recorded at Parr Street Studios in Liverpool and produced by long-standing collaborator Phil Bulleyment, The Joy Of The Return marks a significant change in the band’s process, with their extensive touring allowing them time to write and develop tracks and arrangements through soundchecks and back-of-van jams.
“I think it’s definitely our most interesting and accomplished record musically,” says singer Aaron Starkie. “Lyrically the album covers love, alienation, the rise of right wing populism and comments on algorithm driven propaganda. And as always, I try to deliver those lyrics with uplifting melody.”
The announcement of the album comes on the back of another huge year for the band, which saw them play a mammoth, 32-date European tour, and a number of sold out UK shows including London’s The Dome and two consecutive nights at Manchester’s The Ritz following the release of their critically acclaimed third album, Build A Tower.
SPRING 2020 UK & EU TOUR DATES
23/03 – King George’s Hall, Blackburn
24/03 – The Sage 2, Gateshead
25/03 – The Liquid Room, Edinburgh
27/03 – O2 Academy, Liverpool
28/03 – O2 Institute 2, Birmingham
29/03 – The Globe, Cardiff
30/03 – Thekla, Bristol
01/04 – Pyramids Centre, Portsmouth
02/04 – Concorde 2, Brighton
03/04 – Electric Ballroom, London
04/04 – Rock City, Nottingham
06/04 – Junction, Cambridge
07/04 – Foundry, Sheffield
08/04 – Beckett University, Leeds
09/04 – Pyramid & Parr Hall, Warrington