Uppers

Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was borne out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band’s years of pursuing ‘real life’ and ‘real jobs’, something those teenagers never had. Last November, the band – vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Smith and drummer Ed Kelland – played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an “industrial freezer” in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. “It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle…” Charlie laughs, remembering how they dodged Star Wars memorabilia and deep fat fryers while making their first statement as a band. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a precedent for launching a band during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest’s entrance in April with the release of debut single House Of York - a searing examination of the Monarchy set over wiry postpunk and fronted by a Mark E. Smith-like mouthpiece - served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation’s fried brains. It’s the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it’s an album that has a lot to say right now. Tak

Tracks

1~1~The Big Curve
1~2~Press Gang
1~3~Leg Room
1~4~Journal Of A Plague Year
1~5~History Week
1~6~Decoration
1~7~Slideshow
1~8~Fathers And Sons
1~9~The Ref
1~10~Powers Of Ten
1~11~This Island
1~12~Saintless

Details

Format: Vinyl LP
Artist: Tv Priest
Release Date: 05 February 2021
Genre: Alternative
Label: Sub Pop Records
Distributor: Inertia Music