New Chapel Club – Download Sleep Alone

There are times we set our sights on a band here at KCRW and are somewhat shocked when they don’t get the wider attention we think they deserve. A couple years ago a UK band called Chapel Club released an EP followed by an excellent debut full length. We were all over it. It was sensual, melancholic atmospheric indie rock with some songs topping 8 minutes.

After that, everything seemed to go quiet.

Now, the band is back with a fantastic new single from the forthcoming album “Good Together” that is quite different. It’s lighter and poppier but excellent all the same.

Stream “Sleep Alone” and download it here.

And Jason Bentley’s favorite, “Scared”

Scared by Chapel Club

Chapel Club hadn’t released any new music since May 2011 and will be playing their first live show with new songs later this week. There was a good reason for the long break: the band needed to figure out what they wanted to be. Here’s a letter from singer Lewis Bowman:

“We formed and were signed so quickly that we never really talked about what kind of band we wanted to be. So while it was amazing that lots of people embraced the music, and while we knew it had its strengths, we also knew we wanted to approach the second record in a different spirit.

This time around we wanted to create something fresh, for us as much as everyone else – something bright and playful and surprising. Looking back, the first record was kind of a comedown record, whether coming down from a drug or a relationship or the hopes of your youth or whatever. And I guess at some point I realized that, while I was singing like it was all over, actually it wasn’t; it was just beginning. (Whatever ‘it’ may be.) So this time the band decided that, whatever the emotional direction of a song or a lyric – even if it was about feeling sad or scared or confused – we’d try to turn those feelings into something more active and productive than a grandiose whinge. That’s what lots of my favourite pop songs do, and “Good Together” is above all else a pop record. It feels strangely thrilling to say that.”

Now I can’t wait to hear the rest!

RR