Moreish Idols release new album “All In The Game” on Speedy Wunderground
Watch / share a new video for the album’s title track HERE
Headline UK tour currently underway
Credit: Billy Tourle
Select press for Moreish Idols:
“An arty post-punk jam” – Stereogum
“Blessed with a shrewd melodic touch, the band fuse this with surrealist word-play, building to that impeccable chorus.” – CLASH
“pulsing, unrelenting post-punk” – NME
“a dazzlingly structured, genre-progressive masterwork.” – Wonderland
“A new banger… promises an exciting string of releases to come.” – Dork
“Hectic at times, but in the best way – a captivating listen.” – DIY
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Today, Falmouth-formed Moreish Idols release their debut album “All In The Game” on Speedy Wunderground. The album follows their recent singles “Dream Pixel”, “Pale Blue Dot”, and “Slouch” (with the former marking the label’s 50th 7” single), which have seen the band earn plaudits from the likes of NME, CLASH, DIY, Dork, Wonderland, and BBC Radio 6 Music. The album is available on ltd. edition orange vinyl HERE.
Speaking on the release, the band says “Our band began 8 years ago as a creative outlet to pass the time at university. After relocating, a couple of false starts, a bag of home demos and 2 EPs, we’ve finally landed our debut album.
This album was inspired by the duality of chaos and mundanity in our everyday lives. Through a process of perseverance, acceptance and love, we attempted to bend that mess into a world which feels exciting and surprising to escape into.
Each of these songs has had its own journey, all of them being forged and modified through playing shows with old friends, making new ones, long, sometimes teary writing sessions, endless laughter with Dan in the studio and one intense, last minute re-recording.
Like the seemingly endless number of beads we threaded to make the curtain on our cover, we hope there are countless universes for you to find within this collection of songs.”
To celebrate the new album, Moreish Idols are currently undertaking a headline UK tour which will run throughout March. The shows follow a run of packed-out live dates including Speedy Wunderground’s 50th single launch show, an appearance at Left Of The Dial, and a set at Beyond The Music, at which NME praised them for their “rushing, sweeping arrangements”. Full dates are as follows:
Fri 7th March: Manchester – The Castle Hotel
Sat 8th March: Newcastle – Xerox
Sun 9th March: Glasgow – McChuills
Tue 11th March: Leeds – Oporto
Wed 12th March: Bristol – Louisiana
Thu 13th March: Southampton – Heartbreakers
Fri 14th March: London – Omeara
Thu 20th March: Rotterdam – V11
Fri 21st March: Paris – Supersonic
Sat 22nd March: Marseille – L’Intermediaire
Tickets are available HERE
Guestlist available upon request
Moreish Idols have carved out a unique position for themselves in the burgeoning London scene. Whereas their debut material showcased a restless, jerky, jagged and rhythmically centred sound that bore the influence of energetic post-punk, their second EP showcased an entirely different side to the band. This evolution saw the group stitch together a looser constellation of ideas, combining swooning tremolo guitars, prickly melodic riddles, erudite saxophone improvs, and flexible rhythms, sounding like Watery, Domestic-era Pavement one second and the bucolic Canterbury Scene the next, but always, always like Moreish Idols most of all.
Alongside today’s release, the band have shared the album’s title track. A psych-prog inflected earworm, which perfectly exemplifies Carey’s eccentric production ideas, largely inspired by the concept of time. For the title-track, Carey asked saxophonist Dylan Humphreys to play the same saxophone part at different tempos, recording onto tape which was itself moving at different speeds. The result is a labyrinthine melody which underpins sonorous multi-layered vocals and intricate guitar work.
Speaking on the single, the band says, “Growing up can feel like a beady eyed crow is watching you from a nearby tree, or like you’re a helpless couch dweller watching the show of your life go by in a relentless binge watch session. We can also pretend it’s all just a game, where time is unwavering and uncaring, and we, the players, can allow the absurdities of life to flow over us. When significant events unfold, especially to those we hold dear, they can serve as a checkpoint, reminding us that life is constantly moving.”
WATCH / SHARE THE VIDEO FOR “ALL IN THE GAME” HERE
Broadly speaking, the main themes running across the album centre around existentialism, memory, and illness. “All In The Game” considers how we understand our limited time on Earth: “time being spent, time being wasted, time getting away from you,” explains bassist Caspar Swindells, “but being able to realise that time is what you make of it.” For the most part though, “All In The Game”‘s existentialist questions revolve around more personal material.
The fragmented story in “Railway”, sung from the perspective of a character determined to seek her own path, was inspired by vocalist/guitarist Jude Lilley’s sister leaving home when he was young. The title-track deals with a period in which fellow vocalist/guitarist Tom Kellett’s father was having health issues: “how long does the wire stretch out?” he sings alongside Lilley, over a yearning, repeating arrangement of saxophone and guitar arpeggios. “Slouch” deals with Lilley’s diagnosis with Ankylosing Spondylitis: a form of arthritis that affects his spine and pelvis. “The song’s celebrating how much the NHS sorted me out in some regards,” says Lilley, who is now able to manage his symptoms with medication. “It was a reflection on never having problems with my health, and how – when you are finally rolled that dice – it’s just about adjusting to it and turning it into a bit of a superpower.” For Lilley, the album is largely about “laughing in the face of despair – trying to find entertainment and solace in quite dark things that have happened to us, or just happen to everybody.”
This is the sort of resolution “All In The Game” always seems to be reaching towards: for all its heavy subject matter and probing questions about human fragility, the conclusions it reaches about life are uplifting, hopeful and affirming.
“All In The Game” is out now on Speedy Wunderground
LISTEN / BUY HERE
