October Drift have released their new album ‘Blame The Young’.
Out now via Physical Education Recordings, the band’s third album release comes ahead of their headline UK tour which includes a headline show at Glasgow’s King Tut’s on October 30th.
Speaking of the new album, frontman Kiran Roy said: “A lot has changed amongst us since the last album. I think we’ve all had to have grown as people and we’ve all made changes in our lives. There’s a sense of a journey, even pilgrimage, in this new album. I say pilgrimage because there is an almost spiritual element – it’s sometimes hard to explain why we write songs and what it means for people to hear them and to play them live and have people sing them back. This album is an escape for us and a route out of the regular.”
To celebrate their album release, October Drift shared with us 5 tracks that influenced ‘Blame The Young’.
Blur – Tender
Could have been anything from this album really! I got into Blur with my mate Joe in my early 20s I guess. Dan was referencing some of the guitar sounds Graham Coxon would create when we were recording this album, he called them ‘fart guitars’. So yeah, our albums full of ‘fart guitars’. I was kind of trying to channel something like the guitar solo in ‘Coffee & TV’ in solos on our debut album ‘Forever Whatever’ – on ‘Losing My Touch’ and ‘Don’t Give Me Hope’, so it’s had different influences across albums. We actually talked about getting a gospel choir to join in at the end of our song ‘Blame The Young’, a bit like in ‘Tender’, but we never pulled it off.
Adele – Someone Like You
We released our debut record in January 2020, toured in the February and went into lockdown in the March. This obviously sucked for our album campaign! But was an opportunity to write a lot – most of which made up the second album, ‘I Don’t Belong Anywhere’. We had scraps of ideas that hadn’t been explored, and I’d sit for a couple hours a day and write. One of the ideas was a voice note called ‘Adele Chords’, which Dan or Chris had made – it was a piano part that sounded a bit like ‘Someone Like You’, and that’s how our tune ‘Wallflower’ started. I wrote two verses and a chorus to the ‘Adele Chords’ and then we fleshed it out when we could meet again in person at our studio in Somerset. ‘Distance’ by Editors also inspired some of the vibe, and the electronic drums on this one, as well as ‘You Missed My Heart’ by Mark Kozelek & Jimmy LaValle, Phoebe Bridgers does a nice version too.
Low – Dinosaur Act
From their album ‘Things We Lost in the Fire’. This album was leant to my dad from a friend of his and found its way to a much younger me. The vibe of the album has definitely influenced music we went onto make – we had a song called ‘Sunflowers’ in an old band which was perhaps a little too closely inspired by this album! When I brought the ‘Tyrannosaurus Wreck’ lyric to the guys, they couldn’t decide whether it was the best or worst lyric I’d brought to the table. It was definitely unconsciously inspired by the Dinosaur Act lyric. There’s something I really love about the lyric, what’s a dinosaur act – something massive, something lost or forgotten? Listening back I can hear this low song in our song ‘Hollow’ too, which came about very organically in a jam and was definitely not a conscious thing but there’s definitely something reminiscent in the way the chords move and the vocals, structure, vibe, approach land.
Minor Victories – Scattered Ashes (Song for Richard)
Minor Victories is made up of Justin Lockey from Editors and his brother James who’s a filmmaker and played in Mastersystem, Rachel Goswell of Slowdive and Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai. Editors, Slowdive, Mogwai and Mastersystem have all influenced the moods and textures we’ve tried to capture in our own music. This song in particular has the perfect balance of feeling nostalgic but modern, anthemic but cool as fuck.
LCD Soundsystem – Call The Police
Something of LCD Soundsystem definitely seeped into the making of this album. Even the title ‘Blame The Young’ has no direct link, but felt something similar to ‘Call The Police’. The songs ‘Oh Baby’, ‘New York I Love But You’re Bringing Me Down’ and ‘All My Friends’ all influenced this album, and perhaps in particular the title track ‘Blame The Young’. Something of the way the verses are the hook upon which the song hangs and how they develop throughout. ‘Blame The Young’ also ends with a little nod to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, which no one seems to have noticed yet!
Listen to October Drift’s music influences below:
Stream October Drift ‘Blame The Young’ via Spotify: