FALSE HEADS – IT’S ALL THERE!
False Heads step up a chapter with their debut album, the roughly hewn and smoothly executed ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’.
This three-headed East End gang have built momentum towards this LP, while turning the heads of key entertainment biz shakers with classic ROCK that is very English and International simultaneously. “Even though it’s aggressive, it’s delicate which is exactly what we wanted.” (False Heads)
A dozen soul worms from a band of our times.
Ah, our times… The last few years have relegated the “GB” of Great Britain to Gammon Brexitannia.
The Resistance, apocalypse punx, soundtrack our slow motion descent into second world farce and bogroll battles. We are through the fucking rabbit hole. Luckily, so are our bands!
False Heads have worked hard to reach the Friday the 13th of their lives. By Spring 2017, we documented that that they were “a band who would go on to do so much more“.
They’re already scorching festivals at all levels and consistently touring the UK and Europe. Throbbing vein passion in performance at QOTSA, Frank Turner and Libertines supports. False Heads have been tipped by Kerrang!, the Independent Newspaper and played across key radio. Arriving via insane gigs, in one piece at 2020, ready to spring this Spring.
This long player begins like the opening scene of a coronation, gently drawing back dark velvet curtains to bright sound, emphatically gliding to home grown grunge groove and grit.
If we can manage to have any fucking bands still left standing after a decade of “austerity” (heist), we should be gobsmacked into listening, respecting and appreciating our musicians.
“It’s All There, But You’re Dreaming’ is the culmination of the last four years of our lives together and the last ten of lives individually – since we all picked up instruments in our early teens.”
The world is bleak and social media makes it bleaker. We get our information from our own echo chamber and we are our own tabloids. The album is trying to find a way internally of processing the external and that has themes of depression, misery and addiction but also slight bursts of optimist and individual joy.” (False Heads)
Over the time that ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’ has been simmering itself together, a surge of British Irish post punk povvo spunk has ignited with inciteful insight to gift home grown heritage our own heroes.
A culture where, paradoxically, talent has blossomed despite extreme music education and venue culling.
On the outside looking out means that bands as unlike each other as False Heads, Big Joanie, Idles, Bang Bang Romeo, Fontaines D.C., Bugeye, MOSES, Nova Twins, The Blinders, Calva Louise and more vanguard names – can make guitar orchestrations of myriad inspirations and creations into a classic albums era.
GB now stands for Grime Britain/Guitar Britain. We are compelled to document this uniqulture (a word I invented that the thesaurus has no comparison for. That’s how different our “Fertile Environment” is).
We can go to a great gig, next thing you know, you’re there again! (Or even crew – there are music fans, Alan Wells and Jane Pirate, on the rising rock circuits). The music industrious of DIY grass roots is something else. Inventive, inviting, involving.
For False Heads, it’s been (literally) blood, sweat and tears propelling them towards an album, what would have been their first USA dates – including SXSW – and a UK tour (dates below).
Reflections of good lucks and head fucks are mirrored in their raw but sculptured sound. Time to start recognising another golden age when Lizzo is spiritual medicine and False Heads are giving Foo Fighters a run for their money with this racing raging release.
“We didn’t consciously think too hard about what we wanted musically, as it’s a perfect summation of the last four years of us being in a band together.
We did want to create something that is interesting and versatile which we think we did. It’s not the same song twelve times”. (False Heads)
Described as “one of the best bands in the world” by ex-Ramones manager Danny Fields, they’ve also received huge support from Iggy Pop on his BBC 6Music radio show. He says “they are young, talented and going places, if they came to my town I’d show up for that.”
Photo by Neil McCarty
For the story we’re telling. it’s just as important that False Heads mean a lot to the small venue stars cast of our tapestry. The world’s turned upside down, but there are thousands of music fans who have sparked the newer wave. Imaginative and creative audiences as allies – connected on land and on line. Grassroots shows are where we step into reality and civilisation.
Spaces where we can be shy, clumsy and still totally at ease (my life is great, I gig). Harmless pleasure freaks unite.
So, False Heads have had radio plays by the iconic Rodney Bingenheimer on USA’s Sirius XM and Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music, but they were also championed by Some Might Say zine, early days front cover.
Fast forward and the editor, Sahera Walker, is now steering Werkhaus, London’s fastest rising “IT” venue. From viralling on the internet to 2020 Virus World where the venue hosts a fund raiser night for SXSW cancellation stricken bands this weekend as I write this. False Heads will call in there on their UK album tour:
March
26 Castle & Falcon – Birmingham
27 Record Junkee – Sheffield
28 Off The Square – Manchester
29 EBGBS – Liverpool
April
01 The Garage Attic Bar – Glasgow, UK
03 Heartbreakers – Southampton, UK
05 Latest Music Bar – Brighton, UK
06 Louisiana – Bristol, UK
16 Werkhaus – London, UK
We’re living through uncertain times, but 100% sure of our TUNES. False Heads sounding like a head banging headline set on this LP. That tour’s gonna flame. We need this.
Here we everyday music fans are – skint, scared and screwed – but getting to see those above mentioned bands up close and under £20 live, or are transported by imagination to where their songs take our minds.
Heck, the interdependent promoters in the small venues have even launched their own music festivals over the last few years. We’re gate crashing scenes and glass ceilings armed with classics of the new and NOW while augmenting independent and mainstream industry futures.
A case in point, there’s a hard rocking circus going on in this collection of songs. Rock is, by definition, alternative. Here the genre is applied loosely, with a broad brush of tender pop tendencies, fury venting instrumentation and even psych tangent candypunk moments through an array of energised solo arrangements around harmonic layers.
In short, ‘It’s All There But You’re Dreaming’ is a winning seed. Plant False Heads in your true heart. It sometimes feels like we’re characters in a dystopian movie but at least the soundtrack is our real life: You’re not dreaming, it’s all there.
Words: Caffy St luce