Six tracks deep, in the very heart of the album sits the fiery title track ‘More Than This’. Imagine early Arctic Monkeys multiplied by the breakneck urgency of Biffy Clyro and the sharp tongued worldview of Paul Weller. It’s a damning portrait of a hungry family in a broken Britain, as Ellis sings a song ‘For the broken hearted, from a broken home, let down on the breadline, and this ain’t the first time’. “That one’s about me delivering food for a food bank to a single mother of two who lost her job, felt let down by the system and just wanted more,” says Ellis. “She was late on the rent, had no money coming in, no food and just felt forgotten about. I just wanted to say, ‘Don’t judge people without knowing them, always treat people with compassion’. Love always wins.”
Hailing from Winsford – a forgotten town between Manchester and Liverpool – The Luka State aren’t overly concerned with the loftier heights of the rock’n’roll dream. Their gritty new album, ‘More Than This’, is an unapologetic state of the nation address, and a record born of the only world they know. The bulk of the album was recorded at The Motor Museum in Liverpool (previously used by The 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon) with producers Dan Austin (You Me At Six, Pixies) and the Grammy Award-winning Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse). It’s a small space, chosen to reflect the claustrophobia and tension that the songs were written in. The results are the most aggressive, visceral and immediate work of the band to date, fearlessly exploring the darker shadows of modern working-class life. The scorched desert rock of ‘Oxygen Thief’ spits back against an arsehole who sent Ellis’ mental health into a spiral, the wall-of-sound of ‘Losing Streak’ acts as what the singer calls “a warm hug for anyone else battling addiction and trauma”, the rushing angular indie of ‘Two Worlds Apart’ speaks to anyone “feeling a little bit lost” and the arena-ready ‘Matter Of Fact’ is a lovelorn yearning for a company and a little healing. “Does my love decay when I’m not OK?” Ellis asks on the track, the centrepiece of a very human record that runs the gamut of anxieties that come from needing to know what’s next in life and love.
Hailing from Winsford – a forgotten town between Manchester and Liverpool – The Luka State aren’t overly concerned with the loftier heights of the rock’n’roll dream. Their gritty new album, ‘More Than This’, is an unapologetic state of the nation address, and a record born of the only world they know. The bulk of the album was recorded at The Motor Museum in Liverpool (previously used by The 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon) with producers Dan Austin (You Me At Six, Pixies) and the Grammy Award-winning Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse). It’s a small space, chosen to reflect the claustrophobia and tension that the songs were written in. The results are the most aggressive, visceral and immediate work of the band to date, fearlessly exploring the darker shadows of modern working-class life. The scorched desert rock of ‘Oxygen Thief’ spits back against an arsehole who sent Ellis’ mental health into a spiral, the wall-of-sound of ‘Losing Streak’ acts as what the singer calls “a warm hug for anyone else battling addiction and trauma”, the rushing angular indie of ‘Two Worlds Apart’ speaks to anyone “feeling a little bit lost” and the arena-ready ‘Matter Of Fact’ is a lovelorn yearning for a company and a little healing. “Does my love decay when I’m not OK?” Ellis asks on the track, the centrepiece of a very human record that runs the gamut of anxieties that come from needing to know what’s next in life and love.
TRACK LISTING
1. Bring Us Down
2. Oxygen Thief
3. Losing Streak
4. Two Worlds Apart
5. Stick Around
6. More Than This
7. Matter Of Fact
8. Tightrope (Walking On A Wire)
9. Swimming Backwards
10. Metamorphosis
11. Change
12. Movies