Self-proclaimed ‘Council pop’ group Orphan Boy are releasing a third single from their critically acclaimed album ‘Coastal Tones’ which came out earlier this year. The new single, ‘Money to Money’ will be available on October 9th via Concrete Recordings.
Recent articles in The Telegraph, Shortlist Magazine and Vice have declared that the band’s hometown of Grimsby is the worst place to live in Britain. Fitting, then, that the band should release as a single ‘Money to Money’ with its unflinchingly bleak description of life on ‘Prospect Road’. Frontman and lyricist Rob Cross describes the song as a response to the sometimes romanticised view of poverty,
“There is no added charm or vitality or sense of community in poverty. It is a place littered with plastic bags and rented rooms, where children wail and young people in the prime of their lives lie under crumpled bed sheets, drained by the pressures of the world, watching the clock tick while the unopened bills and red letters pile high beneath the letterbox. There’s a lot of this kind of thing going on in Grimsby.”
The song manages to strike what can often be a tricky balance between melancholic reflection and a defiant energy. Opening with languid, woozy guitars and a low, mournful sax, the pace soon picks up thanks to the driving rhythm of Paul Smith on bass and Chris Day on the drums. Cross’s impassioned voice sings of ‘Young bodies frail folded crumpled under rags’ before the stirring chorus kicks in and takes the energy up a notch. It wouldn’t have been this reviewer’s choice of single (‘Transpennine’ and ‘On a Nelson Skyline’ are stronger tracks in my opinion) but it’s still a great sampler of the sounds and atmosphere to be found on ‘Coastal Tones’.
The band have announced a UK tour to accompany the single release, so you can witness the gloriously chaotic scenes captured in the video above for yourself at the following dates:
October
3rd – Derby, The Victoria Inn
23rd – York, The Spread Eagle
27th – Hull, The Sesh @ Polar Bear
29th – London, Sebright Arms
November
13th – Scunthorpe, The Light
15th – Stockton-on-Tees, Ku
19th- Lincoln, Engine Shed
Website: www.orphan-boy.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/orphanboyuk
Twitter: www.twitter.com/orphanboyuk
