| Treetop Flyers have released “Old Habits”, the title track from their upcoming new album due December 3 on Loose Music, listen to the track / pre-order the album here. Old Habits is the London band’s fourth long-player and the follow up to 2018’s critically acclaimed eponymous album. The second track to be lifted from the new album following lead single “Castlewood Road”, the exquisitely realised country blues of “Old Habits” give it the feel of a song which could be on The Last Waltz, or a rediscovered lost classic from Gene Clark’s No Other. Ten years on from winning the Emerging Talent Competition at Glastonbury and after releasing three Americana-shaded albums that have won them a bespoke, passionate fanbase, Old Habits finds Treetop Flyers – Reid Morrison (vocals, guitar), Laurie Sherman (guitar), Sam Beer (guitar), Rupert Shreeve (drums), Ned Crowther (bass), and Geoffrey Widdowson (saxophone) – in a reflective mood. “We’re all getting a bit older, and a few of us have gone through some difficult things,” explains frontman Morrison. “And I remember talking to Ned, and he used that phrase: old habits die hard. He was talking about the difficulty of leaving a band he used to be in, but obviously it could apply to all sorts of things: drinking, relationships, whatever. And it just stuck with me – it felt quite poignant in terms of where everyone was.” Old Habits sees Treetop Flyers moving away from the American West Coast vibe of their previous album to develop a sound that encapsulates the energy and feel of London and classic British Rock n Roll. “I love Rod Stewart and I love the Faces. And Van Morrison is one of my heroes,” explains Morrison. “So we thought: why don’t we try and do something like that, a British take on rock’n’roll? Because previously we’ve been seen as Americana, Sixties, California, whatever – and those references I totally get – but there’s some amazing British rock’n’roll records that barely get talked about. So let’s have that as our rough aim.” This meant doing things as live as possible, and as “downhome” as possible. Luckily, Treetop Flyers have the luxury of The Cube, their own studio, a perfectly formed space at the back of some workshops in Hackney. Which was useful because, as Morrison points out, a fair few people think that some of what Rod the Mod and Van the Man did in the early Seventies “was really simple. But it’s actually not. And when we got into the studio, we could actually have a good crack at that, and spend time doing it.” Old Habits also had the luxury of being finessed into rootsy, rocking perfection by the extra time gifted to Treetop Flyers over the past 18 months, the six musicians making the very best of the bad hand we were all dealt by you-know-what. Guitar player Sherman was in the producer’s chair, as he was on the band’s 2018 self-titled third album. “He got very pernickety,” says Morrison. “Which was good, it worked out in the end, but we had to go through the annoying-ness of him going: ‘That’s not good enough, not good enough…’!” These, then, are the new vibes and fresh sounds of Old Habits. It’s the album that’s truest to Treetop Flyers, as clear and cohesive as they’ve ever been, “and working to our strengths”. And for Morrison, it’s the best of the band, drawn from the most challenging of periods. “The right things came out of my mouth at the right time. For the first time I was like: no, I’m gonna say this. This is me, this is us, this is now.” |
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| Download album artwork here Old Habits tracklist: 01 Golden Hour 02 Dancing Figurines 03 100 04 Castlewood Road 05 River 06 Old Habits 07 Cool Your Jets 08 Out The Blue 09 Sometimes 10 Night Choir Pre-order/pre-save here |