Releasing themselves from the lo-fi and ambient rock of their debut album “The Merry Monarch” – having spent much of their recent time involved in soundtrack work – the forthcoming full length “Harness” sets its stall out as a move into an eclectic, but no less focussed, sphere of operation. With the February release of the album’s first single “End of An Error”, we got a sense of the record’s more anxious moments and themes of escapism. However, in the way that new single “Without Face” marries skittering percussion with lead singer Nik Glover’s immaculate falsetto – set to a reverberating, chiming panorama– we’re let into the band’s talent for writing skewed, otherworldly, pop songs. Glover comments on the track; “It’s channelling St Etienne for that dawn-of-the-90s, mid-tempo disco thing. The song is about my constant fear of heart attacks, brought about by my dad’s own bypass back when I was in college and my knowledge that me and him have a lot in common. I’m ageing, and starting to think about death in an overly dramatic kind of way.”

It is said that a change is as good as a rest, so when it comes to Liverpool quartet Loved One’s re-emergence, coupled with their shift in musical direction, things can only bode well for the swell of new material they are set to release in 2017.

See Loved Ones Live:

June 10 – Liverpool album release show, The Leaf, Liverpool, UK