Scottish veterans, The Zephyrs will be releasing their sixth album, For Sapphire Needle on 27th January 2023 via Spanish label, Acuarela. Their first since 2010, includes ten songs in 46 minutes that traverse country-folk to spaced-out psychedelia by way of shoegaze-pop glimmers. Pre-order album HERE
The opening track and first single “Leatherback”, a Crazy Horse-esque wall of distorted guitars, draws on lyrics from their first album It’s Okay Not To Say Anything and youthful pre-history of unreleased 4-track recordings. This hauntology, the ghostly persistence of past in the present, encapsulates some of the broader lyrical themes of the album. “Leatherback” is a bold statement of intent (closer to rock than pop) with which The Zephyrs make it clear that they have returned – twelve years after their last LP – to stay.
Originally conceived as a series of EPs based on the seasons in which they were created, the recordings span a year of sessions with long-time collaborator and producer Michael Brennan at his Substation studio, next to a naval port in Rosyth. With songs ranging from short and tightly constructed country-folk introspections to sprawling, spaced-out psychedelia, and a killer Spaghetti Western instrumental, what resulted, was a myriad volume of work. For Sapphire Needle is the first collection of 10 of these songs to be released.
The Zephyrs, Stuart Nicol, David Nicol and Robert Dillam are joined on this album by collaborators: guitarist John Brennan and keyboardist Will Bates. The songs and sounds are sculpted out of slabs of time with friends at the Substation, a de facto weekly youth club for musicians who refuse to grow old.
For Sapphire Needle Tracklisting
- Leatherback
- God Loves A Trier
- December
- Snowline
- Can’t Tell Us Apart
- Blue In The Face
- I Tell You What
- Bolder
- How Have You Been Today
- Aliens