Fun fact: in the 250 years that followed the Gunpowder Plot, it was mandatory to celebrate the capture of Guy Fawkes and the foiling of an act of sedition which would have changed Britain as we know it.
Which isn’t at all relevant to ‘Summer Moon’ apart from the fact that its creators, There Will be Fireworks, decided that it would be apt to release their third full-length record on a date as close as possible to November 5.
The Glasgow five-piece’s first album in a decade consists of a near-hour of brooding indie rock, with work on the record beginning back in 2016. Meaning ‘Summer Moon’ is a labour of love; the band carefully constructing its thirteen songs both remotely and in person, before recording at Gargleblast Studios in Hamilton alongside engineer/producer Andy Miller (Mogwai, De Rosa, Life Without Buildings).
And while the band members have kept busy, variously with New Year Memorial, Tiny Skulls, and retro, post-lockdown project Dead Modern, the intervening years have seen them move from the cusp of adulthood on 2013’s ‘The Dark, Dark Bright’, to a suitably reflective mood on ‘Summer Moon’ – a whole decade on, in the throes of marriage, fatherhood, love and death, and with the weight of all these portrayed beautifully throughout the album.
“Summer Moon has been written from a perspective that’s ten years older,” lyricist Nicholas McManus explains, “with wives and kids and mortgages and careers, and people close to you starting to die. There is a weight brought by all of that, I think.”
McManus says of the band’s evolution of sound: “We are much more purposeful in our arrangements. If we’re going to go heavy now, we’re going to go heavier than we have before, but it needs to be earned.”
As well as their trademark shimmering squall of guitars, ‘Summer Moon’ is propelled by a rhythm section that feels more powerful and expressive than ever before. Analogue synthesizers – including a vintage Italian string synthesizer – add new depths to their sound and the Cairn String Quartet lends the record a sense of musical freedom that is resoundingly alive. “Our preferences and influences have evolved, our habits have changed,” says McManus of the familiar, yet different, sound.
For which listening is, if not compulsory, certainly compelling.
This article originally appeared in the Edinburgh News.
Also chief newshound at Jockrock
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