Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Church Party. Back In The Room was released on 19th May, 2023.
Back In The Room marks a return to music for this Manchester (UK) based band. Frontman Tommy Stewart’s struggles with alcohol, cocaine addiction and his (at that point) secret bisexuality led to the band taking a break in 2016 and now they are back with full force, and with the original lineup.
Back In The Room was written after frontman Tommy Stewart visited a friend who had been sectioned. The song grabs your attention immediately with an intoxicating bass and drums rhythm and some really interesting and heavily panned synth-like guitar riffs.
When the vocals come in, they are deep and low and mellow, reminiscent slightly of Sisters of Mercy’s early 90s music. We love the change-up in the choruses which truly display the quality and diversity of the lead vocalist, with moments of Suede and Beautiful South stylings in the enunciation and delivery.
We found this track exciting to listen to and all found ourselves slow-nodding to the riff-based verses. The choruses are extremely catchy and feel positive and hopeful. We love the repeated line of, “Back In The Room,” which makes for a definite singalong moment in the track.
The rise and fall of this track create a highly dynamic soundscape – a filtered section leads back into a chorus and the synth-like guitar solo has a definite Rob Thomas with Santana feel to the tones used.
The exposed vocals at the end display Stewart’s confidence in his voice, and rightly so, this is a stellar performance of a vocalist with numerous tricks in his vocal toolbox.
For fans of David Bowie, Pulp, Talking Heads, Pixies, Television, The Fall, Magazine, Arctic Monkeys.
Ideas from our ears
A hi-pass around 40Hz could reduce some unnecessary low end and a careful surgical cut around 155-160Hz would reduce a peaking tone coming from the snare sound. A small cut centred around 1kHz would bring down some slightly ‘nasal’ or ‘tinny’ sounds too. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
This was our first introduction to the music of Manchester-based, Church Party, and we’re hooked. Catchy choruses, intoxicating rhythms and classy playing all bundled into a Britpop/post-punk genre-crossing track to delight your ears.
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