London rock quartet TV Priest have announced their sophomore album, My Other People, coming June 17 on Sub Pop. The follow-up to last year’s acclaimed Uppers is preceded by new single “Bury Me in My Shoes,” our second preview of My Other People after February’s “One Easy Thing.” TV Priest’s own Nic Bueth produced the record at London’s Studio East.
“My Other People is a more “open’” set of songs, both musically and in our themes; in the process of writing we found ourselves talking about things other than anger or aggression. We wanted to discuss love, loss and joy too,” frontman Charlie Drinkwater says of the band’s new album in a statement. “It’s a record about personal disintegration and destruction, but also rebuilding again after this. It’s also heavily rooted in place, the music being a very direct response to Britain and England in 2021, but in a more abstract and textural sense.
“A muddy field viewed from a train window between cities, a patch of wild flowers growing next to a motorway, sticky carpets in a suburban flat roof pub, pissing rain on an August bank holiday and the smell of diesel in an out of town supermarket car park. An angry, hopeful, shitty, beautiful island.”
While “One Easy Thing” found TV Priest taking a quiet-loud approach to their chugging, spoke-sung post-punk, “Bury Me in My Shoes” leads with unflagging urgency, as if to reinforce its central suggestion: that life is passing you by, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. “Life only comes in flashes of greatness / Life only comes in flashes of greatness / Life only comes in flashes of past greatness,” Drinkwater intones, quoting an “old man” who’s lived to see this particular hard truth for himself. Guitars flash and buzz as Drinkwater surveys “the bonfires of good ideas,” bemused by “some deeper mystery / I couldn’t seem to hold.”
“‘Bury Me In My Shoes’ is a hangover of a song,” Drinkwater says of the band’s new track. “Last year was about reminding ourselves to hang on to good things; to remember you can love and hate in equal measure. That the answers are rarely found by looking backwards. ‘Bury Me’ was written as a response to that general feeling of unease and creeping dread. A feeling you get from bad news on no breakfast.”
Following a handful of release-week U.K. in-stores in June, TV Priest will tour the U.K. in support of My Other People this fall, starting with an Oct. 30 stop at Bristol’s The Louisiana and ending with a Nov. 13 show at Brighton’s Green Door Store. The band plans to announce U.S. and E.U. tour dates soon.
Check out “Bury Me in My Shoes” below, and see the details of My Other People and TV Priest’s tour dates further down.
My Other People Tracklist:
01. One Easy Thing
02. Bury Me In My Shoes
03. Limehouse Cut
04. I Have Learnt Nothing
05. It Was Beautiful
06. The Happiest Place On Earth
07. My Other People
08. The Breakers
09. Unraveling
10. It Was A Gift
11. I Am Safe Here
12. Sunland
My Other People Art:
TV Priest Tour Dates:
June
17 – London, UK @ Rough Trade East
20 – Brighton, UK @ Resident*
21 – Southsea Portsmouth, UK @ Pie & Vinyl*
22 – Totnes, UK @ Drift*
23 – Leeds, UK @ The Vinyl Whistle*
October
30 – Bristol, UK @ The Louisiana
31 – Birmingham, UK @ Hare & Hounds
November
01 – Dublin, IE @ The Workman’s Cellar
03 – Manchester, UK @ Yes (Pink Room)
04 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
05 – Leeds, UK @ Belgrave Music Hall
07 – Cambridge, UK @ Portland Arms
08 – Leicester, UK @ Firebug Bar
10 – London, UK @ Scala
11 – Reading, UK @ The Face Bar
12 – Southampton, UK @ The Joiners
13 – Brighton, UK @ Green Door Store
(* – Stripped down performances)
