Endless Arcade

Description

The LPX version has a die-cut sleeve and is pressed on Translucent Green vinyl this is an exclusive indie only format.

Teenage Fanclub have announced news of their tenth studio album, Endless Arcade, released 5th March. Even if we werent living through extraordinarily troubling times, there is nothing quite like a Teenage Fanclub album to assuage the mind, body and soul, and to reaffirm that all is not lost in this world.

Endless Arcade follows the bands ninth album Here, released in 2016 to universal acclaim and notably their first Top 10 album since 1997; a mark of how much theyre treasured. The new record is quintessential TFC: melodies are equal parts heart-warming and heart-aching; guitars chime and distort; keyboard lines mesh and spiral; harmony-coated choruses burst out like sun on a stormy day.

In the 1990s, the band crafted a magnetically heavy yet harmony-rich sound on classic albums such as Bandwagonesque and Grand Prix. This century, albums such as Shadows and Here have documented a more relaxed, less teenage Fanclub, reflecting the bands stage in life and state of mind, which Endless Arcade slots perfectly alongside. The album walks a beautifully poised line between melancholic and uplifting, infused with simple truths. The importance of home, community and hope is entwined with more bittersweet, sometimes darker thoughts insecurity, anxiety, loss.

Such is life. But the title track suggests, Dont be afraid of this endless arcade that is life.

A preview from the album came in February 2019 with Raymonds Everything Is Falling Apart, an online single released at the outset of a six-month tour and a highlight of Endless Arcade.

Everything is falling apart? Well, yes, but the song was written long before COVID-19 arrived. Neither was Raymonds inspiration political or social, but more, the entropy in the universe, the knowledge that everything eventually decays, he explains. But Raymond says relax. Or rather, Relax, find love, hold on to the hand of a friend.

Fortunately, Endless Arcade was virtually finished by the time lockdown was announced, bar the odd tinker under the engine hood. It seems timely, given how everyone had to initially stay home under lockdown, that the album starts with Normans Home, though it was chosen in part because of its opening line: Every morning, I open my eyes The albums longest track (at seven minutes) typifies TFCs relaxed groove, culminating in Raymonds peach of a guitar solo.

Normans search for home could be literal: after all, hes been living in Canada for the last 10 years. But its also figurative. Like Normans other Endless Arcade songs The Sun Wont Shine On Me, Warm Embrace, Im More Inclined, Back In The Day and Living With You his words on Home are etched by loss and yearning. Without going into too much detail, the last eighteen months have been challenging for me on an emotional level, he admits. But its been cathartic channelling some of these feelings and emotions into song.

In contrast, Raymonds songs hes also responsible for Come With Me, In Our Dreams, The Future and Silent Song are philosophical and questing. As he sings in The Future: Its hard to walk into the future when your shoes are made of lead, but hes still going to try, and see sights weve never seen.

In the bands own near future, theyre already planning another new album given they cant yet tour the one theyre releasing now. Welcome back, Teenage Fanclub, unafraid of this endless arcade that is life.