Red Rum Club Release 'Western Approaches' Album & Share New Single 'Afternoon'

Liverpool, England's Red Rum Club have released their new album Western Approaches, 11-tracks of open-hearted, observational poetry met with melodies that move feet, minds and hearts. 

To celebrate they have shared the video for the album's “Afternoon,” a track penned with shades on and blinds down (and in a haze of hangovers) in Austin, Texas as they criss-crossed North America on a recent tour.  

Seeing no limits to where their music can take them, least of all the gap of the Atlantic Ocean, the band's repeated visits to meet with fans in the US has given them more than enough encouragement to follow their dreams. In choosing Western Approaches as a title for their fourth album, following 2022's UK Top 40-charting How To Steal The World, they reference their home city's indelible, historic links to the rest of the world, a tradition they are taking forward in their border-free, genre-hopping songwriting.    

Working with hit-making producer Rich Turvey (Blossoms, Courteeners, The Coral), the flood of grittier, burnished songs came to the band amidst the ruins of Liverpool's industrial past. A new rehearsal room, a former docklands den of iniquity, offered the backdrop of brooding streets and dramatic, sea-meeting skies from which songs like recent single, Hole In My Home, emerged. 

In the case of “Afternoon,” the band – made up of Francis Doran (vocals), Tom Williams (guitar, backing vocals), Michael McDermott (guitar, backing vocals), Simon Hepworth (bass guitar), Neil Lawson (drums, percussion), and Joe Corby (trumpet) – found inspiration as the night turned to day, and back to night, while on tour far from home. 

Doran, says: "'Afternoon' is an upbeat bop written in Austin, Texas after we found ourselves in a hazy limbo, trying to define when the night ended and the morning began."

Purchase/stream Western Approaches here.

Following their run in the U.S. as the support for The Wombats, Red Rum Club will be returning to this side of the pond for their own headline gigs this Spring.  The dates kick off May 10 in Boston and conclude in Los Angeles on May 23.  They will play Brooklyn's Elsewhere on May 11. 

Well-known for their live show, the band will be playing fan-favorites and tracks off Western Approaches on a sold-out tour of the UK in March and April.  The run concludes at Liverpool's 11,000-capacity M&S Bank Arena on April 5.  Tickets are on-sale here and all shows are listed below. 

Red Rum Club's 2019 debut Matador marked out a musical territory all of its own for the band to toy with, uniting relatable, real-world lyricism with aspirational, upbeat songwriting. Relentlessly gigging through smaller venues before bigger stages started calling, Red Rum Club reward came as they rode national airwaves on the BBC Radio 2 playlist with “Eleanor” in summer 2020, drawn from the lockdown-released sophomore album, Hollow Of Humdrum.  

Red Rum Club tour dates 

3/7 – The Garage - Glasgow (SOLD OUT)

3/8 - Newcastle University - Newcastle (SOLD OUT)

3/9 - Sugarmill – Stoke (SOLD OUT)

3/10 - Stylus - Leeds (SOLD OUT)

3/12 - Scala - London (SOLD OUT)

3/13 - Trinity - Briston (SOLD OUT)

3/14 - Depo - Plymouth (SOLD OUT)

3/15 - Engine Room - Southampton (SOLD OUT)

3/16 - Academy Institute 2 - Birmingham (SOLD OUT)

3/18 - Junction - Cambridge (SOLD OUT)

3/19 - Rescue Rooms - Nottingham (SOLD OUT)

4/5 -  M&S Bank Arena - Liverpool (SOLD OUT)

5/10 -  Sonia - Boston, MA

5/11 -  Elsewhere - Brooklyn, NY

5/12 -  Kung Fu Necktie - Philadelphia, PA

5/14 -  Beat Kitchen - Chicago, IL

5/15 -  Turf Club - Minneapolis, MN

5/18 -  Globe Hall - Denver, CO

5/20 - Kilby Court - Salt Lake City, UT

5/22 - Bottom of The Hill - San Francisco, CA

5/23 - Peppermint Club - Los Angeles, CA

Photo Credit: Sam Crowston

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