ALBUM NEWS: We Were Evergreen - 'Towards'

Source: https://www.facebook.com/wewereevergreen

The absolutely wonderful french trio We Were Evergreen this week announced that their eagerly awaited debut album (produced by Charlie Andrews who produced Alt-J’s Mercury Prize winning record) will be titled Towards and is going to be released through Mi7/Island on May 5th.

You can pre-order it here and when you do you’ll not only get an instant download of their new single Daughters but also access to an exclusive presale for their album tour in May, where they’ll be starting in Cambridge, and visiting Liverpool, Leeds, Glasgow, Oxford, Birmingham, Cardiff (among others) and finishing up at London’s Scala!

The band are wonderful both recorded and live - I saw them around 2 years ago supporting King Charles, and they were energetic, had a really exciting stage presence and were most importantly sounding excellent - and from what I’ve seen on Youtube, their live shows are getting bigger and better! I massively recommend that you take a look at them on Youtube, pre-order the CD and try to get along to one of the shows!

WATCH: Half Moon Run 'Nerve' for BBC Radio 1

Half Moon Run playing Nerve in session for BBC Radio 1 last year.

WATCH: The Hoosiers perform 'Worried About Ray' for Nobu Unplugged

One of my favourite bands, The Hoosiers, are back after a couple of years of doing the odd gig and trying out new things, and they're releasing their third studio album The News From Nowhere on 3rd March. You can pre-order the album in a sort of Kickstarter-esque manner, with the band using the money from preorders and putting it straight back into the record, towards actually releasing the album (including promotion etc.) For more info on that and the different packages available go here.

But for now.. take a listen to this wonderful live version of Worried About Ray from Nobu Unplugged!

LISTEN: Foster The People - 'Coming Of Age'

Foster The People yesterday announced that their second studio album Supermodel will be released on March 18th. This video accompanies a track from the album, entitled Coming Of Age (which is pretty great and quite what you'd expect from the band if Torches is anything to go by) but also shows a time-lapse of quite an incredible murial of the new album cover.

WATCH: Half Moon Run 'Full Circle' for Mahogany

This Canadian band, Half Moon Run, have such a lovely, fresh sound. Beautiful harmonies displayed perfectly in this live session of their track Full Circle, which was Single Of The Week on iTunes a little while ago. I've been listening to the band's debut album Dark Eyes a lot recently (tip: it's quite good for studying to) and it's definitely one of the best albums that I purchased last year - finding it difficult to choose just one track to recommend as the whole album is pretty great. The Mahogany Sessions is one of my absolute favourite Youtube music channels, they make such great videos and with really wonderful musicians and this is no exception. Really worth a watch.

TOUR NEWS: Story Books (March 2014)

Source: Story Books' mail-out

The magnificent Story Books, who I saw earlier this year supporting King Charles are going on their first headline tour in March. If any of the shows are close to you I very much recommend getting along to one, they're really cheap and this band are excellent live. If that isn't enough for you they'll be playing new material as the tour coincides with the release of their new EP From Post To Post, and the band have uploaded a track from the EP onto their Soundcloud which you can listen to here (it's great, and if you want to listen to more I recommend All Those Arrows from their EP Too Much A Hunter which is one of my favourite musical purchases of the year.)

EP and tour info here.

WATCH: Jack Savoretti 'Written In Scars' for Mahogany

Here is a brilliant new Jack Savoretti track Written In Scars performed acoustically for The Mahogany Sessions.

WATCH: Arctic Monkeys - 'One For The Road'

tractors, girls, fireworks - just a normal music video, right?

Check out the video for the latest Arctic Monkeys single One For The Road taken off of their fifth consecutive number 1 album, AM. The track is one of my favourites from the album alongside Snap Out Of It and the wonderful R U Mine?. The band are currently on a UK tour and a few of my friends have gone to London to see them tonight.. not jealous, nope, not at all.

LISTEN: Sam Beeton - 'The Yearling's Song'

Listen to Sam Beeton's latest track The Yearling's Song - played on BBC's The Beat recently. The track is the latest release of Sam's unique Record Club, a subscription service through which fans get Sam's latest songs (on a physical CD) as and when they are written, recorded and produced. You can find out more about the Record Club here.

LISTEN: Franz Ferdinand - 'Right Action'

Loving this, Franz Ferdinand performing Right Action on Later... with Jools Holland. I wasn't aware of their new record (Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action) until I saw it in HMV and I wasn't sure whether to buy it, and worried that I might be disappointed because I really loved their older stuff when I was growing up. Fear not, however, the new record (which I've since bought on vinyl) is fantastic, one of my favourite new albums of this year in fact.

The tracks are catchy and showcase quite a range, a few start pretty slowly but the album retains the band's fun sound which you can't help but want to dance to. Alone, a lot of the tracks stand out as having single material. What's more, it's clearly a Franz Ferdinand record, you can hear clear elements of their older records in this one, which is great as it was the only worry I had about the album! The above video is one of the best tracks of the album, alongside my personal favourites Stand On The Horizon, Evil Eye and Bullet.