Chain of Flowers The Wall & HMP Cardiff

Chain of Flowers
The Wall
New track and video by Sion Thomas
Check it out here https://youtu.be/jOcF6U9r9kM
Taken from upcoming album Never Ending Space
Released 26th May 2023 on A L T E R

Tour dates: 1st June - Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff  | 2nd June - Delicious Clam, Sheffield  | 3rd June - The Lower Third, London

Welsh post-punk unit Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materialising in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London. Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. In this time they successfully channelled their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far”.

"The Wall runs all the way around HMP Cardiff. It’s a song written for anyone that's ever had a run in with the British prison system via the imprisonment of close friends or family. That said, if you know the feeling of helplessness in someone else's pain, separation without total loss or have ever felt the heavy ache of being so close yet so far away from another, it’s also for you."

 Directed by Sion Thomas, the video finds Chain of Flowers performing to a largely disinterested crowd, all set within a hazy loop of renaissance art-esque Saturday night chaos; live in the Never Ending Space. Not featured within the video is Canadian multi-instrumentalist Joseph Shabason (Destroyer, The War on Drugs, DIANA) who provides a tearing saxophone cameo over the track.

 "This was an unexpected but beautiful collab, orchestrated by Jonah. We came back to the studio after tracking the song the previous day and he'd phoned in Joseph's magic overnight. Eternally grateful."

Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra). Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks, drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.” A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued.


Director: Sion Thomas
DOP: Tom Doran
Gaffer: Bertil Mulvad
Camera Assistant: Leigh Arthur