Pages tagged “the futureheads”

This decade seems inundated with one-hit wonders pumped up and then dumped by fair weather bloggers and music fans. With their 2004 self-titled debut, a memorable set of angular post-punk reminiscent of early XTC and Wire, the Futureheads seemed like another pleasurable flavor-of-the-moment band from across the pond. But the Sunderland quartet has since worked hard to avoid becoming a statistic.

The Futureheads announced on April Fool's Day that This Is Not The World, the album we've been clamoring about for a good while now, will be released May 27. No pressure, gents!

This third album is hoped to be a charm for the Scottish rock outfit. At least the soil seems fertile for success, from extensive touring to prep for the first single’s release, “The Beginning of the Twist,” and various television spots on queue.

Not to mention the lads are going rogue after splitting with their former label, 679, in 2006. Now all releases will be through their own imprint, Nul Records, which will distribute solely their own work. Keeping it simple—that’s what we like to see.

The album reportedly harkens back to the less-pop version of themselves, much like their 2004 self-titled release. The band will tour the UK through mid-May and hopes to announce dates for the States in the near, ahem, future.

To hear the first single, visit the band's MySpace. Or check out “Broke Up the Time” here and check out the video, as previously reported.

MP3: The Futureheads – “Broke Up the Time”

Tracklist for This Is Not The World:
The Beginning Of The Twist
Walking Backwards
Think Tonight
Radio Heart
This Not The World
Sale Of The Century
Hard To Bear
Work Is Never Done
Broke Up The Time
Everything's Changing Today
Sleet
See What You Want

Related links:
TheFutureheads.net
TheFutureheads.co.uk
Paste: Review: The Futureheads News and Tributes

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Free of the label that decided to "dump" them two years ago, The Futureheads have released their new single in the UK and are politely asking fans to stick it to The Man by purchasing said single.

Their plea seems to be working. The new song, "The Beginning of a Twist," clings to the bottom rung of the UK Top 20 Chart. The band's forthcoming album, This Is Not the World, is scheduled to parachute into the States in May. We're glad to hear that that "sometime in 2008" release date is resolved.

Watch the video below. Tour dates after the video:

March
20 - London @ Brixton Academy (XFM Big Night Out)
21 - Leicester @ Athena
26 - Liverpool @ Wireless (DJ set)
29 - Cologne @ Palladium Rockpalast

April
2 - Cologne @ Cologne Live Music Hall
3 - Berlin @ Postbahnhof
4 - Munich @ Backstage
5 - Wiesbaden @ Schlachthof
6 - Hamburg @ Markthalle

May
5 - Cardiff @ Great Hall*
6 - Glasgow @ ABC*
7 - Dublin @ The Academy*

June
6 - Nurburgring @ Rock Am Ring
7 - Nurnberg @ Rock Im Ring

August
16 - Chelmsford @ V Festival (Hylands Park)
17 - Staffordshire @ V Festival (Weston Park)

* MTV Spanking New Tour w/CSS and MGMT

Related links:
TheFutureheads.co.uk
The Futureheads on MySpace
Paste: The Futureheads: Bullied no more

Got news tips for Paste? E-mail news@pastemagazine.com.

As previously reported, Sunderland, England's favorite sons The Futureheads wrapped up work on their third album this summer. Now we're starting to see the delicious fruit of their labors. In fact, NME.com just alerted us to some fresh Futureheads content hitting the web. Below is the video for "Broke Up The Time," which is slated to appear on the forthcoming record:

Sounds like a throwback to the group's rowdy, self-titled debut, and a bit of a step away from the well-mannered pop of last year's News and Tributes. The track's also up for download on the group's website. We're still waiting on a title and release date for that new album (it's still in that "sometime in 2008" limbo), but we'll keep you posted.

Related links:
The Futureheads on MySpace
Paste: The Futureheads - Bullied No More
YouTube: Some kids lip-sync to "Hounds of Love"

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

The Futureheads’ frontman Ross Millard announced Monday that the band has canceled all of its US tour dates due to Tendonitis in drummer Barry Hyde’s left wrist. This unfortunate complication should not affect the bands’ European dates, the vocalist said, as the months in between will give sufficient time for the drummer’s wrist to heal. The band promises to revisit the United States as soon as possible given Hyde’s pending recovery. Stay tuned for rescheduled tour dates at The Futureheads’ Official Web site.

The Futureheads’ self-titled 2004 debut LP bore a heavy XTC influence and featured tight four-part harmonies, but everything seemed rushed and half-formed, neutralizing the potentially tasty ingredients. The follow-up, however, finds the young English foursome more in control of its sound, as if the band figured out how to bottle its adrenaline instead of simply spewing it—apart from the frenetic “Cope” and “Return of the Berserker,” at least. On News and Tributes, The Futureheads integrate a number of intriguing elements—backing chorales ranging from intricate, Four Freshmen-like blends to Gregorian chants (with both extremes showing up in the inventive “Burnt” and “Worry About It Later”), pumped-up bass lines and the warming accents of fingerpicked acoustic guitar. In short, the band is now displaying an elevated gift for arrangement. The crucial next step is to start coming up with songs of commensurate sophistication, bringing substance to the sound, as Andy Partridge did with XTC.

Stretching out in the back of their tour bus, Barry Hyde and Ross Millard cut fairly impressive figures. They’re both muscular, well over six feet tall, and look like they could hold their own if an argument ever descended into Marquis Of Queensbury fisticuffs. Believe it or not, they sigh in unison, as kids growing up in the tiny English hamlet of Sunderland, they were virtual sitting ducks for local lager-lout bullies. On an almost daily basis, Hyde recalls, “we were chased home from school, or someone would tap you on the shoulder, punch you in the face when you turned around, and then run away. So it was quite a miserable place to live, especially the more we got to travel and see what the outside world was like.”

So guitarist/vocalist Hyde made a bold decision. With his drumming brother Dave, a bassist known as Jaff and his chum Millard on six-string, they convened an XTC-retro art-rock group in the Hyde family garage. Instead of moving away, they fought from within sorry Sunderland as The Futureheads. Which wasn’t easy, grouses Millard, “since it’s such an ignorant town, and it doesn’t have the multi-cultural aspect of London, Manchester or Liverpool. It’s not ethnically diverse, and all the industry is rooted in car manufacturing and factory work and is typically boring and low-paid. There aren’t any outlets for artistic development.”

“No venue to play, no cinema,” continues Hyde, shaking his head. “There are two strip clubs, about fifty pubs, but not even one movie theater. It’s that old English routine—go out on the weekend for a pint and a fight.”

The Futureheads had to create their own culture. They all sang lead, layering their voices into repetitive four-part, channel-jumping harmonies that magically coalesce into quirky New Wave-ish pop songs on the group’s eponymous Sire debut. And when they finally ventured out in concert, they toured a series of U.K. working-men’s clubs, wowing blue-collar middle-agers alongside the punky twenty-something crowd. The Futureheads have recently been tooling through America, opening for longtime fans Franz Ferdinand, and the buzz has grown so strong, even those old face-smacking bullies have dropped in on their Sunderland shows, just to congratulate Hyde and company. Several, Millard adds, have secretly confessed that they too wanted to be rock stars—they just never had the guts to attempt it. Especially not in Sunderland.