Orphan Boy have revealed a new music video for ‘Thirtysomething Lovesick Ballad’, the B-side to forthcoming single ‘Money To Money’, due for release on October 9th via Concrete Recordings.
A tale of grim reality in the provinces, where dole-drum routine builds a simmering resentment and entire days are spent: “watching Zulu and just burning matches by the window”. Orphan Boy front-man Rob Cross reveals that this is one of the oldest songs to feature on their recent third album Coastal Tones. “We wrote it before Passion, Pain & Loyalty when we were all in our mid-twenties. It has been in the live set for years. The spoken word thing is something I like doing, inspired by heroes of mine: Kevin Rowland, Tom Waits and Jarvis Cocker”
Watch ‘Thirtysomething Lovesick Ballad’ BELOW:
With inspiration rooted in the often overlooked rural North, ‘Money To Money’ / ‘Thirtysomething Lovesick Ballad’ firmly emphasises the romanticised portrayal of poverty is a lie. Fittingly, the single comes at a time when the band’s hometown of Grimsby has been declared by recent articles in The Telegraph, Shortlist and Vice Magazine as the worst place to live in Britain. It will be released digitally on October 9th through Manchester based independent label, Concrete Recordings.
Since their inception in 2008 with debut album, Shop Local, Orphan Boy’s ethos and sound has been rooted at street-level. Accurately dubbing themselves ‘council pop’, the band grafted hard playing hundreds of gigs a year with nothing but a battered Ford Fiesta as a tour bus, until the quartet met a premature demise in 2011.
The result of bad luck, regional bias, and the impending question of “when was the last time you saw an A&R man in Cleethorpes?” suggested the band had been dealt a particularly cruel hand, but It’s one which makes their latest album Coastal Tones all the more relevant. A beautifully crafted portrait of Britain in an austerity-torn 2015, it comes with the melodic clout and renewed focus of a band starting over, and has received 8/10 reviews and above from the likes of Q Magazine, Louder Than War and more.
Having previously played alongside the likes of Babyshambles and The Sunshine Underground and appeared at Glastonbury, the Secret Garden Party and Truck festivals, the band have announced a string of UK live dates through to November.
TOUR DATES
OCTOBER
23rd York, The Spread Eagle
27th Hull, The Sesh @ Polar Bear
29th London, Sebright Arms
NOVEMBER
13th Scunthorpe, The Light
14th Middlesborough, The Venue (supporting The Enemy)
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