Manchester-based indie electro/doom pop band The Slow Readers Club have announced the release of their sixth studio album ‘Knowledge Freedom Power‘.
The follow-up to their 2020’s album The Joy Of The Return, will be out on February 23 via Modern Sky UK. Pre-order your copy here.
Nothing – not despots, pandemics, self-destruction or the rise of the machines–can keep a good band down. So, when TSRC hit the studio in early 2022 with producer Joe Cross (Hurts/Courteeners), they battled dark times with a refreshing optimism. The result is a sizzling synth-rock beast of a record akin to White Lies, Muse and modern-day Bloc Party, and a rallying cry of emancipation, both stylistically and socially.
Frontman Aaron Starkie says:
“The world had got so bleak it felt a little indulgent to paint apocalyptic pictures when they were out in the real world. I thought people would probably want to hear more uplifting things, it was my intention to be a bit more positive. There’s still a lot of melodrama in there and it’s still dystopian in places but there’s more positive shades in this record.”
That positivity powers to the fore with the album’s lead single and title track, an instantly addictive hybrid of the band’s new pulsating synth style with their anthemic alt – rock roots. Its streamlined, straight – to – the – point hook highlights the fact that there can be an alternative to a world which is becoming increasingly authoritarian and ignoring the needs of the many in favour of the few.
Aaron adds: “Growing up as a council estate kid in Manchester I was very conscious of having a limited horizon and I guess I had a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. It’s that background that inspired both our band name and the album’s title track ‘Knowledge Freedom Power’. It is an exercise in positive sloganeering, a mantra for education as a means of a way out from social and psychological confinement.”
Check out the album’s tracklist and watch the video for its title track below.
Knowledge Freedom Power Tracklist:
- Modernise
- Afterlife
- Sacred Song
- Lay Your Troubles On Me
- How Could You Know?
- Knowledge Freedom Power
- What Might Have Been
- Seconds Out
- Forget About Me
- No You
