About this item

After releasing their debut album, ‘Spring Tide' in 2022, to strong reviews (4* in Mojo magazine, 5* in Morning Star with support from BBC 6Music), Liverpool-based band The Shipbuilders return with their second album 'This Blue Earth'. Singles, ‘Daydreaming’ and ‘Hills Of Mexico’ have led from the front, combining sea-sprayed bar-room jams with Morricone-hued escapist splendour.

Working once again with Danny Woodward (B.C. Camplight, Ladytron), the band has expanded to a five-piece, taking in a permanent brass section and pushing their sound to its natural limit. As ever, the band’s sound remains hard to pinpoint, but all human life is in here. There are musical echoes of Love, The Coral, The Everly Brothers and Charles Mingus, with lyrical giant touchstones such as Hemingway, Joyce and Steinbeck all feeding into a wonderful melting pot that sounds like everything and nothing you've heard. 'This Blue Earth' creates a cohesive universe around itself that begs to be explored.

Whether it is wild storytelling set to urgent drumbeats and sparkling guitars (95 Miles, Hills of Mexico), raucous, chaotic clatters (Daydreaming, Flagpole, The River) or wondrous blue-eyed melodies (Polynesia), nestled next to expansive, soaring soundscapes (On the Run, La Dolce Vita) and Merseysippi Gospel hollers (Heavy is the Weight), the album is never static or predictable and there isn't a cliché in sight.

Having supported Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band on several UK tour dates in 2024 and continuing to expand their own Club Shipwrecked nights, which has featured acts such as Andy Bell (Ride/Oasis), By the Sea, Bill Ryder-Jones, Stone Club, Roy and more, alongside having played festivals such as Kendal Calling, Sound City and LIMF, The Shipbuilders are building up to celebrate more of 'This Blue Earth' in venues around the UK through 2025. 

TRACK LISTING

1. 95 Miles
2. Daydreaming
3. La Dolce Vita
4. The River
5. Metempsychosis
6. Flagpole
7. Hills Of Mexico
8. Polynesia
9. On The Run
10. Heavy Is The Weight