Teenage turbulence meets old-before-time wisdom in a waterfall of luminescent melody as whip smart indie treasures, The Lathums, release new single, Oh My Love. The first new music of the year from the BBC Sound Poll 2021 shortlisters arrives, snapping at the heels of their biggest ever live show announcements, in a cerebral, line-a-second, spring shower of iridescent, poetic pop that, like many of the best things in life, is over all too soon.
Incomparable and unassailable, the unassuming, poetic masters of jangle-ska-whatever-it’s-called from the overlooked outskirts of Greater Manchester last week announced they would take to the stages of Manchester’s O2 Victoria Warehouse, Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom and London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town as part of an expanded and upgraded, 21-date headline UK Tour this autumn and winter. Oh My Love is the serotonin hit to prove just how they’ve got there.
Fizzing with the rare creative friction that sets off sparks of glowing inspiration, singer and songwriter, Alex Moore’s profound lyrics, written in the long shadow of personal loss, are roused by the chiming tangle of multi-instrumentalist, Scott Concepcion’s celestial guitar and piano lines. Written in and for the times when life’s storm clouds gather, Oh My Love is one in a succession of songs that poured from bookish Moore’s heart as a prodigious 16-year-old, finding sense in music when the world had failed to make any sense at all.
Moore says of the track: “The opening line: ‘your face seems to have sunken, in the event of my demise’ starts a back and forth with someone who is no longer with us, talking from above. Moving on, lines like ‘time is weak and demanding of me’ are a concession to the fact that life moves on, it’s too short and there’s no need to hang on to negativity. It’s upbeat and happy, a complete juxtaposition to the starting point for the song when I was a hurting teenager.”
Recorded in Liverpool during late 2020, Oh My Love is the product of sessions in which The Lathums poured off-stage frustrations of lost live shows into glistening studio recordings, evoking the song’s theme of turning desperation to hope. Comparisons to the great neighbourhood poets of British pop, from The Smiths and Arctic Monkeys to Orange Juice and The Jam, are unlikely to dry up any time soon.
Formed of Moore (vocals/guitars), Concepcion (lead guitars/vocals), Johnny Cunliffe (bass) and Ryan Durrans (drums/vocals), The Lathums look forward to a louder and sweatier 2021, with a total of eight live dates upgraded to bigger venues, four brand new dates added and nine shows at existing venues moved from April and May to new nights this winter.
The full list of The Lathums 2021 UK Headline Tour dates are as follows:
Wed 29 Sep – Newcastle, O2 Academy*
Thu 30 Sep – Birmingham, O2 Institute*
Sat 2 Oct – Nottingham, Rock City*
Mon 4 Oct – Cambridge, Junction
Tue 5 Oct – Brighton, Concorde
Thu 7 Oct – London, O2 Forum Kentish Town*
Fri 8 Oct – Southampton, The 1865
Sat 9 Oct – Bristol, SWX
Mon 11 Oct – Sheffield, O2 Academy*
Tue 12 Oct – Leeds, O2 Academy*
Thu 14 Oct – Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom*
Sat 16 Oct – Manchester, O2 Victoria Warehouse*
Fri 12 Nov – Hull, Social – SOLD OUT^
Sun 14 Nov – Leicester, O2 Academy 2 – SOLD OUT^
Mon 15 Nov – Stoke, Sugarmill – SOLD OUT^
Tue 16 Nov – Cardiff, Globe SOLD OUT^
Wed 17 Nov – Oxford O2 Academy 2 – SOLD OUT^
Fri 3 Dec – Dunfermline, PJ Molloys – SOLD OUT^
Sat 4 Dec – Dundee, Fat Sam’s^
Mon 6 Dec – Aberdeen, The Lemon Tree – SOLD OUT^
Tue 7 Dec – Edinburgh, The Liquid Room – SOLD OUT^
