THE CHARLATANS‘ forthcoming album is called ‘Us & Us Only’ and sounds like “Bob Dylan and The Band on Ecstasy playing at the last night of the Heavenly Social“, according to bassist Martin Blunt.
Speaking exclusively to NME, Blunt also revealed that the first single from the album will be called ‘Forever’ and will be released on October 4. The album, the band’s sixth, will follow on October 18 through their new label, MCA/ Universal, which they switched to last year from Beggars Banquet.
Other tracks on the album include ‘Senses’, ‘Impossible’, ‘Watching You’, ‘A House Is Not A Home’, ‘I Don’t Care Where You Live’, ‘The Beautiful Stranger’ and ‘The Blonde Waltz’.
The band will be debuting the new material at their forthcoming headlining appearances at the Reading & Leeds festivals over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The band then play a one-off date at Glasgow Green on September 4 with Beth Orton and Cast. They plan a full-scale UK tour in October.
The band started recording the 11-track album at the end of January in their own Big Mushroom studios in Cheshire and were due to complete the mixes this week.
They will take it to New York to be cut because “American records sound louder” according to Blunt.
He added that two album tracks were being given to two top DJs to remix – but he refused to say who they were as negotiations were still under way. The rest of the album was mixed by the band themselves, with help from engineer Jim Spencer, whose last work was on the Electronic LP ‘Twisted Tenderness’.
Blunt admitted that, following the death of the band’s original keyboard player Rob Collins, it looked as if they wouldn’t make another album.
However, after a long break, a lot of thought and a “few rows”, they decided to go ahead, especially after new keyboardist Tony Rogers fitted in so well. One song in particular, called ‘Senses’, lays Rob‘s ghost to rest, he said.
He said the album’s main theme was “people moving on” in life and that it was the band’s most passionate LP.
“It just sounds like nothing else that’s been released this year. It just soars.
“It still sounds like The Charlatans, but it’s all about being sucked into the tracks a bit more. A lot of them are slow-burners. It just feels really right,” Blunt concluded.
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