The Lounge Society release single 'Anything' with accompanying remixes from Richard Norris (The Grid / Time And Space Machine / Beyond The Wizards Sleeve) and Claris Coy. This is the first release from The Lounge Society since 2022 album ‘Tired Of Liberty’.

TLS are very much connected to the The Golden Lion having worked behind the bar whilst also using the venue as a practice space. Their first gigs were at the venue and they’ve also had their album release parties there. The band are from Hebden Bridge and now reside between Hebden / Todmorden and Manchester. They also now have solo projects (Flying On The Ground / Herbie May / Cam Davey). Herbie also has formed the label Red Liquorice showcasing local artists such as Lily Rae Grant.

The track was formed during weekly practice sessions in The Golden Lion live room. It’s a song driven by heavy, distorted 70s guitars; built on brooding and moody verses, giving way to an explosive chorus. A fiery heart with a cool, charismatic exterior.

Richard Norris injects some contemporary punky-funky energy into the track on the first of his remixes. Galvanizing the bassline and crunching up the drums, instantly transporting the track to the middle of the leftfield indie dancefloor. An idea furthered on his second remix, which adds much more electronic elements, drawing it out into a psychedelic spiral of epic, peaktime proportions that aligns it with some of the stuff by Factory Floor and Phantasy Sound.

Finally, Claris Coy offers up a completely alternative take featuring discombobulated squelch, scorched sfx and glitchy vox. It's the most technofied of the four productions and would work in perfectly in ALFOS-friendly club sets, of which their spiritual home at The Golden Lion is famous for!

A brilliantly conceived record by our friends out there! Highly recommended. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: The coolest band in Calderdale return after a painfully long hiatus, but it's been worth the wait! Rejuvenated and clearly ready to rock, "Anything" finds them smouldering hot; equal parts swagger and headbang; with an arrangement that'll keep you on the edge of yer seat (or dancing manically on the dancefloor). Killer!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
The Lounge Society - Anything
The Lounge Society - Anything (Richard Norris Remix)

Side B
The Lounge Society - Anything (Richard Norris Wide Eyes Mix)
The Lounge Society - Anything (Claris Coy Remix)

Returning for the third time to the studio of Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, Hebden Bridge’s The Lounge Society are back; this time, with the mindset of crafting a debut album conceived out of desire, raised by collaborative muscle-memory, and kept beating, by the sacred-heart of emotional-spirit.

Recorded over two weeks in November 2021, ‘Tired of Liberty’ is a stunningly ubiquitous snapshot of instrumental meltdown, and timeless adolescence. Keen to uphold the manipulated elasticity of a recorded event, the majority of the eleven tracks that make up the record (with the exception of ‘Generation Game’, which saw its beginnings as part of the Speedy Wunderground 7” series, and was subsequently re-recorded), were written either just before, or throughout the duration of those fortnight sessions.

A rarity for most bands, The Lounge Society functions best as a collective entity. With no core-leader, everything from the sources of inspiration, to the lyrics themselves, is handled collaboratively, and with equal merit; as they strive to create a self-sufficient creative unit, larger than the individual. Far from a documentation of disenfranchised youth, ‘Tired of Liberty’ seeks to overthrow with striking articulation. Stirringly fearless, it masterfully combines archetypal storytelling, with as many disparate principles as introspectively possible; capturing the aural shifts in time and attitudes between ‘Generation Game’, and where we join The Lounge Society now.

Brimming with anthemic-myriad, this is the real deal. Genuine urgency from a group of young creatives living and breathing their inaugurated prime, with breath-taking, anarchic-proficiency. Whether it’s “lies drenched in sarcasm” (‘Blood Money’), or, the clattering, riff-screaming irony of ‘Remains’, The Lounge Society’s deep-rooted inversion towards our “culture of anti-freedom”- the ludicrous excuses man makes for the ceasing of mankind, is one which is both culturally-associative, and, counter-culturally embracing.

Periodically awakening the living rebel running skin deep in us all, ‘No Driver’ is a heart-wrenching masterpiece. With every guitar-laden growl, it intricately sheds and unveils each layer of humanity until all that remains is skeletal distress, and intervening frequencies of invigorating-abandon. “The sun is sleeping, all of the time” yet The Lounge Society are awake and desirous; insatiably hellbent on tearing down failing social-structures, before the new-dawn seeks to counterattack.

Be it the self-prophesying hum of the studios ‘Lounge’ recording-light, or, the re-configuration of the entire room so the mics moved away from the instruments with each song, (“we wanted to start with a hard focus and end chaotically”- notes Carey), every possible attention to detail was considered in order to honour the core ethos of fulfilled direction. Fervently striving to build an environment that grows bigger with sound and time, in ‘Tired of Liberty’ the creative process itself holds as much experimental value, as the conceptual journey as a whole.

Whether its personal growth, banded maturity, or a hearty combination of the two, ‘Tired of Liberty’ is an expertly captured documentation of four young-adults, at the baptism of their cultural-ignition. After all, you only get one opportunity at a debut record. “Anything that follows, is just an evolution from that.”- The Lounge Society.

TRACK LISTING

1 People Are Scary
2 Blood Money
3 No Driver
4 Beneath The Screen
5 North Is Your Heart
6 Last Breath
7 Remains
8 Boredom Is A Drug
9 It's Just A Ride
10 Upheaval
11 Generation Game

Pre-order this EP to be in with a chance of winning an exclusive signed test-pressing.

With their first two singles under their belts – "Generation Game", the fastest selling 7" for the award-winning label, and "Burn The Heather" – plus a raft of Ones To Watch accolades for 2021, there is much anticipation for what lies next for the band.

In early 2020, "Generation Game" announced the band as artists shaping powerful narratives around a fast-fragmenting society. With the lyric “what will the US do?” they served up a painfully prescient prediction of American unrest.

Follow-up single "Burn The Heather" made a left-hand turn for the more punk-funk, sneering at culture wars and the damaging impact of a class divide.

New single "Cain’s Heresy" shakes with the propulsion of a nimble rhythm section, full of bite and scorn, simultaneously swinging angrily at a negligent political class ("The death of four souls is less than a kick in the teeth, for them"), the threat of misinformation ("Poisonous ideals on the screen breed a vicious way of thinking, off the screen") and the noxious follow-the-leader march of celebrity culture ("They’re servants to fame"). The EP title “Silk For The Starving” in itself probes at a society that routinely neglects the needs of the have-nots.

The Lounge Society sing about what they know then. Make no mistake, this is the sound of young England: articulate, enraged and energised. And – perhaps crucially - highly danceable too. It should give hope to anyone who has lost faith in the future, because here the future is in safe hands.

TRACK LISTING

Burn The Heather
Television
Cain’s Heresy
Valley Bottom Fever