BUCK Red Rum Club

• 1 Crush, TX 02:19
• 2 Taste 02:34
• 3 American Nights & English Mornings 03:14
• 4 Buck 02:28
• 5 Call Me On Your Comedown 02:46
• 6 Trouble In The Neighbourhood 03:05
• 7 Wild 02:39
• 8 Vanilla (Alt Mix) 02:35
• 9 Animal 03:24
• 10 Wish I Was Here 02:57
• 11 Someone's Baby Isn't Coming Home 03:10
• Total Runtime 31:11

Info for BUCK

Red Rum Club return with BUCK, their boldest record yet, a defiant, high-energy evolution that smashes expectations. Out 5th September, the album follows the band's best-selling Western Approaches and a landmark headline show at M&S Bank Arena. Campaign kicks off around their Aintree Racecourse headline, fresh off a UK/EU tour with The Wombats. With Glastonbury and more festivals this summer, plus UK/US tours lined up, BUCK is built for big moments.

It’s been quite the year and a bit for Liverpool’s finest Scouse Americana sextet Red Rum Club, hitting the Top 10 with album number four, the glorious Western Approaches, before an appearance at this summer’s Glastonbury, as well as recent Leeds and Reading main stage appearances.

And it feels like this momentum, their step by step ascension into the big league has been leading up to this record. The rooms on all of their upcoming Autumn tour are the biggest they’ve played outside of their hometown to date, and where the expectation on WA was to try and sneak into the mainstream, this time round it feels like it should go Top 3 at a bare minimum (unluckily, they are clashing with Sabrina Carpenter’s new release).

So, as all the pieces are in place for ongoing, lasting further success, there’s only one question left to answer, is Buck any good?

The opening signs were good, the three singles (all here within the first four tracks) they’ve already released are all bona fide bangers. ‘Crush Tx’, which opens proceedings here, is the best of the three, a pulsating groove laden stomp with just the hushed one word chorus, which acts as an absolute earworm as is the title track, which is similar in sound and feel, and first single ‘American Nights And English Mornings’, a tale of trying to make a relationship work when one of you is on tour in the US, is the nearest we get to their older sound, all trumpets and fast guitars.

I say older sound, this record feels like a huge step has been taken between the last album and this one, the success they garnered last time round has obviously given them a confidence that sees a record full of more chances being taken sonically, and a production that has them sounding massive, huger than on any previous release.

For those of us old enough to remember, it’s like the step Simple Minds took from New Gold Dream to Sparkle In The Rain, or U2 from War to The Unforgettable Fire, they’ve decided to go for it, and throw everything at the sound of the record, maybe aiming themselves squarely at the US market (they’ve toured a few times over there now). Not only is it big music, it’s big music that knows it’s good.

And another throwback to the 1980s, is that the feel is similar to one of those classic Eighties albums, where most of it was released as singles as there was no such thing as filler, (there’s absolutely no flab here), and where all of them sound slightly different to the one before, but are all unmistakeably them.

But it’s not all blistering ferocity, they do subtle equally as well, invoking the spirit of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘It’s A Heartache’ on side one closer ‘Call Me On Your Comedown’, before the more experimental side two kicks off with the furiously catchy ‘Trouble In The Neighbourhood’ and ‘Wild’, which has the same pop sensibilities of a Scouting For Girls or The Feeling in the early 2000’s, when they were just knocking out hits for fun.

Apart from the high quality of material, excellent song-writing, backed superbly musically, what keeps Red Rum Club miles apart from the swathe of their competitors is their not-so-secret weapon, their USP, the trumpet of Joe Corby is used more sparingly and in less straightforward ways than on previous records, flitting between impersonating a horse on the title track, and acting like a nostalgic, almost 1950’s jazz sound, especially on trademark weird closer (they seem to save their most unusual tracks to the end of their records), the forlorn tale of ‘Someone’s Baby Isn’t Coming Home’.

But before then, we get a reworking of their 2022 standalone single ‘Vanilla’, which looks to be their new live set closer, and best of all, the album highlight ‘Wish I Was Here‘, a glorious Timberlake/N.E.R.D soundalike, it’s a bold move that has them as straightforwardly funky as they have ever previously dared to be, showing that aforementioned confidence again.

And having seen them recently live at their big local comeback gig, fittingly for such a horse-based band and record, at Aintree Racecourse, there was definitively something different about them, the stage and setlist looked and sounded like it was built for arenas and festivals, the shape of things to come for them.

So all in all, there’s not a bum note anywhere on this album, it really feels like Buck is the pinnacle of their career to date and a record that 99% of current acts could only dream of making. It’s a lesson in giving bands time to breathe, to hit their stride, instead of panicking if they don’t hit the top straight away.

In a field swimming with newish guitar bands, Red Rum Club have made the finest album of their genre, whatever that is.

A modern pop masterpiece.

Red Rum Club

Red Rum Club
are an alternative sextet hailing from the shores of Liverpool, England. Since forming, Red Rum Club have enjoyed extensive UK tours and festivals, including a performance at Glastonbury in 2019. The measure of the bands success in the UK is their recent headline show at The M&S Bank Arena, in their hometown.

Their debut album, Matador, reached Top 50 in the UK Album Sales Charts with tracks appearing across BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and 6 Music. Their emphatic sophomore album ‘The Hollow of Humdrum’ stole the essence of summer and injected it into one steamy record. Their third and latest album ‘How To Steal The World’ continues their trajectory, hitting Top 40 in the UK album charts.

Their live history is substantial, adopting a strong DIY work ethic which has seen them build up an ever-expanding fanbase. With a passion to Ignite audiences wherever they go, they show no sign of surrendering their main stage ambitions…selling out numerous venues nationwide including a hometown headline of 2,300 capacity 2 months in advance, bringing their brass- flecked sound to stages and festivals across the UK and Europe and most recently embarking on their debut US tour earlier this year.

This album contains no booklet.