BE SURE: if 2020 didn’t stop ’em, it’s pretty unlikely that whatever weird curveballs 2021 has to bowl at us, this year won’t trouble the rise of Wigan’s new favourite guitar pop sons, The Lathums.
They’re ready and willing in the blocks, and the crack of the starting pistol for this year is the noir video for “Foolish Parley”, which you can watch below.
The track, which they’ve pulled from last October’s Ghost EP, has a timeless quiver of retro vibrato and longwave radio reverb, coming at you spectrally courtesy The Coral’s James Skelly, who was manning the faders and evidently imparted a little of that Wirral psych-pop magic to the lads from up the M58. It has a cracking, fuzzy guitar break too, it should be noted; these lads are growing all the time.
And that video? It’s a little bit “Ashes To Ashes”, with that dispossessed wander through an anonymized beachscape; the gaunt make-up also makes it a little bit The Walkmen’s “In The New Year” (which, if you don’t know it: crikey, tune, but that’s another story); even a little a bit Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker. The noir coastal footage cuts to colour footage of the lads caught live at Blackpool Tower, which they offered up as a live-stream session just before Christmas.
A parley? Well it’s a seafaring custom in which warring factions set down arms to negotiate. A relationship, mayhap, where both protagonists are all at sea and sideswiping each other.
The Lathums’ front man and lyricist Alex Moore won’t be drawn on any autobiographical content, but did say: “Being honest, this just came to me out of nowhere, I can’t pinpoint from exactly where or why.
“Like a lot of songs, it was something that flowed freely, working first time and, sometimes, it takes no more thinking about than that.”
If you think “Foolish Parley” delivers the right degree of guitar-pop shiver, then be scrutinising their spring tour schedule; a lot of the dates, from Stoke to Dunfermline, from Hull to Cardiff, have sold out, but if you’re living in Liverpool or the Celtic lands you can still get a ticket for the following dates:
Sunday, May 2nd, Liverpool, Sound City;
Friday, June 4th, Dundee, Fat Sam’s;
Saturday, June 5th, Aberdeen, The Lemon Tree;
Tuesday, June 8th, Belfast, Limelight 2;
Thursday, June 10th, Dublin, The Academy;
Friday, June 11th, Galway, The Róisín Dubh, and
Saturday, June 12th, Limerick, Dolan’s Warehouse.
For tickets, visit The Lathums’ tour page, here; and for all other information, connect with the band on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
