Hotel Lux
Casual Drag
The Runaway Models
for fans of…Art Brut, The Wave Pictures, Yard Act and Parklife-era Blur
Hotel Lux — completed by acerbic lead vocalist Lewis Duffin, guitarist Sam Coburn, drummer Craig MacVicar, and new members Max Oliver (guitar) and Dillon Home (organ; violin) — found themselves on the path to major success in 2020 around the release of the Barstool Preaching EP. Iggy Pop was singing their praises on the radio. The band decamped to TheWirral, nearLiverpool, where they found further inspiration in the marina, the local Morrisons and a producer and kindred spirit in BillRyder-Jones (TheCoral; ArcticMonkeys; YardAct)— who also contributed piano to the record. It was here that the band’s multi-faceted influences,£20 Casio keyboards and experimentation with omnichords, violins and marauding song structures finally fell into place. With rich emotional peaks matching the band’s signature self-effacing wit, and as many jangling guitars as there are squiggling organ hooks, the results have proven emphatic.
Lead single ‘Common Sense’ was influenced by ‘80s pop-rock group the Beautiful South, says Lewis. It was “are action against what was expected of us” that like wise recycles familiar themes of apathy and media criticism—previously touched upon in ‘TabloidNewspaper’. Inspired by the RMT strikes and trade union leader Mick Lynch, as well as the media’s treatment of Jeremy Corbyn, it’s an intricate and rhythmic and them full of funk bass, machine gun snares and clattering guitars reminiscent of Television or Glasgow indie icons Orange Juice. It’s undoubtedly the band’s most euphoric and danceable single to date
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