WALLFLOWER are on the verge of releasing a debut album of epic proportions; Teach Yourself To Swim’ is set for release 05 June. In the meantime, the London band have released one more taster of the record and it’s the song from which the album’s title came – ‘Further Down’. “Everything that happens on this track is a perfect combination of everything this record is about and, ultimately, what this band is about ” says vocalist and guitarist Vini Moreira-Yeoell. “The lyrics to this song contain the album’s title ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’. In the context of the track, it could mean one thing but when you take those words and say them out loud they start to take their own form and we all felt the phrase represented the album perfectly. One of the biggest things we hope people take away from this album is that none of us claim to have any answers to the questions being asked by the songs on the record. It’s about conversation and discourse and figuring out a little bit more about our own traits – both positive and negative. Sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming, that’s what this song is about.”
The music video that comes with ‘Further Down’ comprises footage of a swimming pool in South Croydon from 32 years ago alongside footage of the same pool in the present day. It is quite different today. The release of ‘Further Down’ follows on from a cross-section of tracks to be revealed from ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’. The rather experimental ‘Passer-by’, hard-hitting ‘Hungry Eyes’ and compelling ‘Eat Away At My Heart’ are all available to listen to now. Having said that, the art of the LP is one that’s extremely important to Wallflower as a band and they approached their own debut full length with great care and attention to craft something extremely exciting, personal and true. ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’ undulates between more familiar tropes and unexpected twists and turns. Having already touched on themes of existentialism, ageing and purpose within their music to date, here they’ve delved deeper than ever before.
On the lead-up to the release of ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’, while hunkered down in isolation, Wallflower began to work on a new series of Isolation Covers, for which they’ve already released their version of Bon Iver’s ‘Hey Ma’ and a rendition of Coldplay’s ‘God Put A Smile Upon Your Face’. Wallflower’s re-imaginings of these tracks are available on Bandcamp with all proceeds going to mental health charity CALM. Wallflower have also just kicked off a new video podcast ‘The Load In’, the first episode of which features a chat between the band and Kris Coombs-Roberts from Funeral For A Friend. Check it out on YouTube.