LIVERPOOL’S bright, summery popsters Red Rum Club are following hot on the heels of last autumn’s The Hollow Of Humdrum by taking those well-sculpted tunes and unplugging them for an acoustic retread of album length, The Hollow Sessions, which’ll be out on Modern Sky on April 30th.
And it’s one of their biggest and brightest tunes, “Eleanor”, with which they’re gracing our pages today. It’s fun and it’s cool and maybe, with that bright acoustic and trumpet, there’s a nod towards those other great Liverpudlians, The Pale Fountains.
It sounds great in a car and boy, does it bring the sound of spring through the windows like a cool breeze; it managed to carve itself a BBC national playlist song on its initial release last July and was reportedly one of the most Shazamed tracks in the UK at the time, as people scrambled to find out just who it was that was delighting their ears.
When the band first released the ‘electric’ version of “Eleanor” last year, lead singer Fran Doran said: “It’s a perfect love song, sung to and about Tom’s (guitarist) partner, Eleanor.
“It was written as an aid to help her overcome an ongoing battle with mental health – she needed a pick-me-up song. It’s a happy, summery ode to finding the right person who you just click with and can’t imagine being without.
“When we went back in the studio after the success of Matador, we didn’t know what to expect, but this came effortlessly.”
Back again with this acoustic album, Fran says of a chequered year in which gigs were pulled everywhere but in which The Hollow Of Humdrum found its fanbase: “It’s been a rollercoaster for us all and while the ride still isn’t over, we’re all hoping for the best and hope more than anything that we’ll be on stage again by late summer.
“Between now and then, The Hollow Sessions presents new versions of the songs we’re really proud of, but we’re not done there. The only way can be up, can’t it?”
And yep, with vaccinations apace and the live scene on the cusp of returning, the band have lined up a massive string of British dates for the summer and beyond.
They’ll be starting in August with a run in support of Circa Waves, as follows:
Tuesday, August 10th, Cardiff, The Tramshed;
Wednesday, August 11th, Leicester, O2 Academy;
Friday, August 13th, Stoke-on-Trent, Keele University Students’ Union;
Saturday, August 14th, Liverpool Guild of Students;
Tuesday, August 17th, Glasgow, O2 Academy;
Thursday, August 19th, Norwich, The Waterfront, and
Friday, August 20th, London Brixton Academy.
The band then have two festival appearances – on Sunday, September 5th, at Warrington’s The Neighbourhood Weekender and also at a date to be confirmed at Glasgow’s TRNSMT festival, before a fortnight with their feet up and finally embarking on a series of headline shows through the autumn, the dates for which are as follows:
Tuesday, September 28th, Newcastle, Riverside;
Wednesday, September 29th, Glasgow, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut;
Thursday, September 30th, Hull, Adelphi;
Friday, October 1st, Blackpool, Bootleg Social;
Saturday, October 2nd, Liverpool, Sound City;
Sunday, October 3rd, Leeds, Brudenell Social Club;
Monday, October 4th, York, The Crescent;
Tuesday October 5th, London, King’s Cross, Lafayette;
Wednesday, October 6th, Milton Keynes, The Craufurd Arms;
Friday, October 8th, Bedford, Esquires;
Saturday, October 9th, Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach;
Sunday, October 10th, Brighton Patterns;
Monday, October 11th, Bournemouth, The Anvil;
Wednesday, October 13th, Bristol, Thekla;
Thursday, October 14th, Truro, The Old Bakery;
Friday, October 15th, Exeter, Cavern;
Saturday, October 16th, Oxford, O2 Academy;
Monday, October 19th, Birmingham, O2 Institute 3;
Tuesday, October 19th, Sheffield, O2 Academy 2;
Wednesday, October 20th, Huddersfield, The Parish;
Thursday, October 21st, Manchester, Club Academy, and finishing with
Saturday, October 23rd, Liverpool, Mountford Hall.
Red Rum Club’s The Hollow Sessions will be released digitally via Modern Sky on Friday, April 30th, with more surprises and announcements promises in the very near future.
For tickets and more news follow Red Rum Club at their website, on Facebook, and on Twitter.
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