Hailing from Winsford – a forgotten town between Manchester and Liverpool – The Luka State aren’t overly concerned with the loftier heights of the rock’n’roll dream. Their gritty new album, ‘More Than This’, is an unapologetic state of the nation address, and a record born of the only world they know.
“Music has always been therapy for me,” says Conrad Ellis, frontman of rising UK indie-rock powerhouse The Luka State. “You do feel like there’s a weight lifted, but for people with mental health struggles and people from working-class towns, you feel like you deserve more than the cards you’ve been dealt – those feelings don’t go away.”
Ellis, along with his hometown childhood friends Sam Bell (bass, vocals), Lewis Pusey (guitar) and Jake Barnabas (drums), dropped their self-funded debut album ‘Fall In Fall Out’ in 2021 to media attention and critical acclaim, but also a world gone quiet due to the pandemic. “It was hard to connect with the wider world when we were all stuck at home, so we couldn’t see what impact we’d had on the scene, the industry and the wider world,” remembers Ellis.
When the world opened up and the band could return to the stage, they found legions of fans who had connected with their debut album’s punchy stories of hometown life and knew every word. But by then, they’d already been at work on the follow-up and were evolving as a band both musically and lyrically.
The bulk of the album was recorded at The Motor Museum in Liverpool (previously used by The 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon) with producers Dan Austin (You Me At Six, Pixies) and the Grammy Award-winning Adrian Bushby (Foo Fighters, Muse). It’s a small space, chosen to reflect the claustrophobia and tension that the songs were written in. The results are the most aggressive, visceral and immediate work of the band to date, fearlessly exploring the darker shadows of modern working-class life.
Take ‘More Than This’ the fiery title track. Imagine early Arctic Monkeys multiplied by the breakneck urgency of Biffy Clyro and the sharp tongued worldview of Paul Weller. It’s a damning portrait of a hungry family in broken Britain, as Ellis sings a song ‘For the broken hearted, from a broken home, let down on the breadline, and this ain’t the first time’.
The scorched desert rock of ‘Oxygen Thief’ spits back against an arsehole who sent Ellis’ mental health into a spiral, the wall-of-sound of ‘Losing Streak’ acts as what the singer calls “a warm hug for anyone else battling addiction and trauma”, the rushing angular indie of ‘Two Worlds Apart’ speaks to anyone “feeling a little bit lost” and the arena-ready ‘Matter Of Fact’ is a lovelorn yearning for a company and a little healing. “Does my love decay when I’m not OK?” Ellis asks on the track, the centrepiece of a very human record that runs the gamut of anxieties that come from needing to know what’s next in life and love.
‘More Than This’ is a huge album that came from a very real place. It’s the record The Luka State were always meant to make, and one that will finally set them on the right path. As Ellis explains “The album title says it all – people just need to realise and fight for what they’re worth”.
Previewed by extensive touring across the UK and North America last year, their tracks have been highlighted at 6 Music and BBC Introducing, while widespread international streaming support has included Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and Deezer. The Luka State. The band kick start their UK & European Tour on the 23rd March in Birmingham.
MARCH
23rd – Birmingham, Rainbow
24th – Bristol, Crofters
25th – Southampton, Heartbreakers
30th – London, Camden Assembly
31st – Leeds, Hyde Park Book Club
APRIL
6th – Aberdeen, Tunnels
7th – Dundee, Church
8th – Glasgow, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
12th – Hamburg, Hakken
13th – Cologne, Helios37
14th – Berlin, Maschinenhaus
15th – Amsterdam, Paradise Bitterzoet
18th – Paris, Supersonic
21st – Manchester, Academy 3
More Than This Track Listing
01.) Bring Us Down
02.) Oxygen Thief
03.) Losing Streak
04.) Two Worlds Apart
05.) Stick Around
06.) More Than This
07.) Matter of Fact
08.) Tightrope (Walking On A Wire)
09.) Swimming Backwards
10.) Metamorphosis
11.) Change
12.) Movies
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