Brand New Friend will release their new EP A Cure For Living on 14 February 2020 on digital download through Xtra Mile Recordings. Preorder the EP here.
This is their first recorded material since single ‘The Letter A’ released in autumn 2019, and their debut album Seatbelts For Aeroplanes back in spring 2018. You can watch the video for ‘Nothing Stays the Same’ below.
The Northern Irish indie-pop quintet were inspired by characters imagined by 80s indie veteran Lloyd Cole in his timeless ‘Jennifer She Said’ track, for ‘Nothing Stays The Same’. The band muse on just what may have happened next for Lloyd’s lovelorn protagonist.
“'Nothing Stays The Same' is a love song constantly shifting perspective between two people. It's the sound of two people who love each other deeply but who know they're running out of distance. It's framed in the Botanic area of Belfast, in the old Botanical gardens near Queens University. In the rain, of course. I was heavily inspired by Lloyd Cole on this track, I love the way he colours his world so you can see who he's singing about when you close your eyes. The girl in this song is Jennifer, from 'Jennifer She Said'. Hopefully it all works out for her…”
Artwork for Brand New Friend’s A Cure For Living EP
Losing none of that trademark pop punch and feedback fizz, A Cure For Living is centred as always around the disarming songwriting and lilting harmonies provided by brother and sister Taylor and Lauren Johnson, performed by a band who’s propulsion into the spotlight since their bedroom pop days has notably sharpened them in all departments and instilled a tangible hunger to excite with the next chapter in their story. From the roller coaster clatter of ‘She Always Comes Up Smiling’, to the sugar-coated rush of ‘The Karma Party’, the tender balladry of ‘You Can’t Know Everything, I Don’t Know Anything’ and anthemic closer ‘Plastic Flowers’; like the friend you’ve always known, the Castlerock quintet’s new EP is at once familiar, but still always knows how to surprise you.
Following their ‘Nothing Stays the Same’ tour in Ireland in autumn 2019, Brand New Friend now look to take their incendiary live show back out on the road this winter/spring with a crop of UK and EIRE headline shows in support of the EP. The band headline Belfast’s Oh Yeah Music Centre as part of Independent Venue Week on 31 January 2020 and a hometown gig at Kelly’s Bar in Portrush on 7 March 2020 with more dates to be announced soon.
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