23/02/24
Transparent Green LP
Western Approaches, a fitting title for a band who's spent much of the last two years living their American dream, however you'll find its origins are a lot closer to home. An old World War II Naval base in Liverpool city centre shares the same name and it's no coincidence. The album was conceived on the docks, a new location for the band and again much closer to home for the boys. It seems the further afar they play the tighter their grip on their roots become, playing their biggest headline show to date in Bootle a small town in North Liverpool where some of the lads grew up. This nostalgia and a dockland setting provided a post-war aesthetic to inspire the album, reflected in the name and the artwork. America had also become a new pasture for the band which you can really hear in this album. A change from the well polished, clean cut sonic that had become a theme in the band's previous works and replaced with the raw energy they're known to produce onstage. The industrial influence is reflected in the production and it became a conscious effort to add more sound effects, distortions and echoes into the arrangement of the songs.
