About
All Hail Bright Futures could be taken as both an ethos for the album and the band at this point in time. There is a new color scheme in place: new textures, emotions, sounds and voices. The 12-track, 43 minute album is dominated by a sunnier disposition, a positive uplift that more closely matches the euphoria the Northern Ireland trio has been instilling in audiences through their music in a live setting for the last five years.
There are moments of tropical guitar pop ("Rats On Rock"), percussive bleeping song foundations paired with infectious vocals ("The Stay Golden"), a trumpet arrangement ("Young Brave Minds"), an orchestral interlude ("Trails"), singalong mantras ("Big Things Do Remarkable"), harmonic hooks ("Like A Mouse"), a flute melody ("Mend And Make Safe") along with cutup vocals and handclaps ("Ka Ba Ta Bo Da Ka"). All of these new additions to the ASIWYFA sound are underpinned by their trademark guitar riffs that bliss the musical brain, complemented by the colossal and increasingly expressive rhythm section that comforts as much as it bludgeons.
Continuing the unparalleled pace at which they've been touring for over five years now, ASIWYFA have taken their uplifting sound to places other bands could only imagine. Since the release of 2011's second album Gangs (also on Sargent House), the band have added China, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus to their already considerably stamped passports. As well as these far-flung, seldom played places, the band have gigged all over North America and Europe, bringing their total show tally close to 500.
A band can't play 500 shows worldwide without a fanbase and ASIWYFA have a legion. And you can't build a legion of fans across the world without great songs. Gangs earned the band a second Choice Music Prize nomination for Irish Album of The Year 2012 and they recently signed to Sargent House worldwide (home to Omar Rodriguez Lopez, Boris, Fang Island, Chelsea Wolfe and more) for management and label -- which will release the band's third album All Hail Bright Futures in March 2013.
All Hail Bright Futures is ASIWYFA's first recording done as a three-piece following the departure of Tony Wright. The band will head back out on the road as a four piece with their new full time member Niall Kennedy. The album was recorded with Rocky O' Reilly at Start Together Studio in Belfast. It is their boldest statement yet, an album bursting with a positive vigor that states a renewed case for a magnetizing band at their best.