Manchester's THE SPEED OF SOUND releases ‘A Cornucopia: Minerva’ album from epic 3-album set, plus video for 'Trickledown'

Manchester's THE SPEED OF SOUND releases ‘A Cornucopia: Minerva’ album from epic 3-album set, plus video for 'Trickledown'.
The Manchester indie rock stalwarts mark 35 years

FOR FANS OF: Jefferson Airplane, Lene Lovich, Manic Street Preachers, Pylon, The B-52s, Blondie, Throwing Muses, Television
FOCUS TRACKS: West Wind, The Great Acceleration, Trickledown, Bodysnatchers, Mind Palace, Yet Another Tuesday, Clickbait, Question Time
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'Trickledown'  https://youtu.be/kDCslTPpogM
'The Great Acceleration'  https://youtu.be/LCGSCo9xj3g 
'A Cornucopia: Minerva' CD & vinyl order  https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-minerva 
'West Wind' single  https://youtu.be/2g1JlCuKZso
Spotify  https://open.spotify.com/track/5fgADipIGJylWUvTbAMdbg
Get the 'West Wind' single  https://orcd.co/speedofsound-ww

"Buzzing fuzz guitar lines emerge from a delicate acoustic introduction to intersect with the crashing chords and the ‘bulbous pulsing’ rhythm section" ~ Record Collector Magazine

"it’s clear that the sonic kaleidoscope presented on The Speed of Sound’s new album is worth the wait - a musical compass in a direction we should all explore" ~ The Spill Magazine

“Unmistakeable sound a winning formula” ~ The Big Takeover

“A triumph of industry, imagination and talent, coolly novel and damned addictive” ~ Louder Than War

‘Unique and other worldly” ~ Vive Le Rock

“A form of Art-Pop that is wry, incisive, yet a deeply listenable examination of post industrial culture” ~ Rock At Night

"A riotous maelstrom of musical mayhem” ~ The Manc Review


Manchester indie rock psychonauts The Speed Of Sound are releasing the album 'A Cornucopia: Minerva'. The first record of the three-album set 'A Cornucopia: Minerva, Victory, Bounty', this is also the band's second release issued via California-based cult label Big Stir Records, 

Full of ambition, energy, and eccentric melodic brilliance, these future-retro-modernist garage-psych stalwarts offer up their new collection as Vinyl and CD 3-album sets under the umbrella title 'A Cornucopia'. Essentially 'Minerva' is being released as a deluxe edition, including two full-length bonus albums 'Victory' and 'Bounty'.

Hailing from Manchester, The Speed of Sound is made up of father and son John Armstrong (guitars and vocals) and Henry Armstrong (keyboards), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals and guitar), Kevin Roache (bass guitar) and John Broadhurst (drums).

With 'A Cornucopia: Minerva' coinciding with the band’s 35th anniversary, The Speed Of Sound returns triumphant, defiant and redemptive, following up their 2021 critically acclaimed album 'Museum Of Tomorrow'. Named for the goddess associated with wisdom, the arts and strategic warfare, this album explores themes of resistance to mainstream cultural dominance, championing individual identity and artistic creativity whilst being a vigorous musical celebration of subcultural existence in the face of predominantly bland pop culture.

With the album's release The Speed of Sound also presents the video for 'Trickledown', having earlier shared 'The Great Acceleration' and 'West Wind'.  Here, they show another side of their craft with this delicate and spaciously haunting floating air, comprised of a soft-hued tonal palette just rich enough in reverb. 'Trickledown' puts forward a subtly expressed and quietly understated critique of Economic Theory, wrapped in a smoothly cast ballad of sheer silk gossamer lightness. A harmoniously mellow and hypnotically absorbing experience like fireworks in slow motion, the lyrics contrasts with razor sharp precision.

John Armstrong notes, “This could easily have been a traditional angry punk song, but gentle smoothness fits the soothing lie behind the Theory. I find the concept of Trickledown Economics bizarre. The idea of everyone owing their economic wellbeing to the existence of the mega-rich is pure sleight of hand fantasy; that they have amassed so much stashed away itself demonstrates it isn’t reaching further down. The stanza borrowed from Shelley’s Masque Of Anarchy (1819) in the middle section shows the general situation hasn’t changed in 200 years.”

'Minerva' presents 14 fresh and variegated tracks, each one a burst of differently-hued radio friendly sonic technicolor. These new pieces range from the recklessly fast Bo Diddley rhythm successfully merged with a Wagnerian horn section of lead single 'West Wind' to the haunting and spacious ballad critiquing Economic Theory that is 'Trickledown' to the stripped back mediaeval folk-tinged starkness of 'The Harvest' to the stratospheric vastness of 'The Great Acceleration'.

The album passes seamlessly through the acoustic guitar-driven groove of 'SS-100-X', the spacious iridescence of 'Eight Fourteen Monday', the lively ascendence of 'The Party Sniper', the glowing radioactivity metaphor of 'Half Life' to the bright uplifting dementia and identity-loss focused 'Mind Palace'. While the bouncing vibe of 'Bodysnatchers' reminds us to stay awake and not slip into the drabness of normalcy, the crunching melodic punch of 'Clickbait' zings into the typewriter introduction of 'Yet Another Tuesday', onwards to the punkifed rhythm and blues of 'So Faux' and the closing acoustic riot of 'Question Time'.

With their inbuilt eclectic and genre-defying style, The Speed Of Sound expand from their base-camp foundation of 1960s, punk and new wave influences, encompassing wide dynamic and stylistic variation, crossing borders and pushing boundaries at every opportunity while retaining continuity. Their music bursts with experimentation whilst retaining hooks and melodic sensibility, plus sharp barbed wit, lyrical depth and all-pervading sense of joy. 

Irrespressible and uplifting, The Speed Of Sound have continuously produced music laced with optimism and lyrical bite, tapping the DIY ethos of punk and the restless lust for experimentation of psychedelia. Formed in 1989 with a pre-history dating back to the day Andy Warhol died in 1987, their music has always been idiosyncratic, counter-intuitive and perpetually looking for something new.

As of May 24, 'Minerva' is available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. It will also be released on CD and vinyl via Big Stir Records.  The 'Bounty' and 'Victory' albums will see digital editions over the next year,

TRACK LIST
01. West Wind (2:39)
02. SS-100-X (3:13)
03. Eight Fourteen Monday (2:59)
04. The Party Sniper (People Down There) (3:09)
05. Half Life (2:47)
06. Mind Palace (3:09)
07. The Great Acceleration (4:26)
08. The Harvest (2:28)
09. Bodysnatchers (2:20)
10. Trickledown (3:23)
11. Clickbait (2:39)
12. Yet Another Tuesday (2:54)
13. So Faux (2:59)
14. Question Time (2:53)

CREDITS
All songs written by John Armstrong
John Armstrong - guitars and vocals
Ann-Marie Crowley - vocals and guitars
Kevin Roache - bass guitar
John Broadhurst - drums
Henry Armstrong - keyboards
Bob Dinn - trumpet and flugelhorn
Chris Guest - harmonium, vibraphone, organ, shakers, tambourine
Alex Armstrong - typewriter on 'Yet Another Tuesday'
Voices on 'Mind Palace' by Janet Stacey Dando, Henry Armstrong, Nick Frater, Jason Edge (courtesy of The Electric Stars), John Broadhurst, Mark Britton (courtesy of Amoeba Teen), Janet Armstrong, Louise Turner, Peter Watts & Ruth Rogers (courtesy of Spygenius) and Kevin Roache, plus Ivy Frater (heartbeat)
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered at Vibratone Sound Studio in Manchester by Chris Guest, Adam Crossley and The Speed Of Sound.
Main sleeve image: Purple Spaceman © Lina Landers 2022
Artist photographs by Shay Rowan
Publicity by Shameless Promotion PR


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