“Clear, plaintive vocals propelled by ascending-staccato guitars and hellbent dance-worthy
We Were Promised Jetpacks have just announced a summer tour in support of their recently released album Unravelling, which is available now on CD and LP in the FatCat Records online store. The July tour includes shows at NYC’s Pier 84/ RiverRocks and Chicago’s Wicker Park Festival. All of the upcoming dates are listed below.
In 2008 Adam Thompson (vocals / guitar), Darren Lackie (drums), Sean Smith (bass) and Michael Palmer (Guitar) were friends and University students by day and one of Glasgow’s most talked about live bands by night. They signed to FatCat Records later that year and released their debut album These Four Walls. Thus began the bands busy touring schedule, playing high profile festival slots around the UK and USA supporting labelmates Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad. 2010 saw the release of EP The Last Place You’ll Look – comprising of unreleased tracks and swelling, orchestrally-inspired rewrites of songs from their debut album.
The bands sophomore release followed in 2011 and was recorded at Sigur Ros’s Sundlaugin Studios in Iceland. In the Pit of the Stomach was testament to the poise, control and vigour the band had learned to command. The extensive touring schedule continued and the release received support and high praise from the likes of Rolling Stone and SPIN. The band also continued to build on their high profile live performances with sets at Coachella, Fashion’s Big Night Out at New York’s Rockerfeller Center and on Last Call With Carson Daly.
During the 2012 tour the band decided to document their journey with the help of friend and film maker Matt Gee. The final show of the run, at Philadelphia’s Union Transfer, was recorded and filmed in its entirety, capturing the explosive energy and drama fans have come to expect from a We Were Promised Jetpacks show. This material was released in February 2014 as E Rey: Live in Philadelphia, named in tribute to the bands then tour manager and friend Esteban Rey.
Also in early 2014 the band worked tirelessly on Unravelling. Recorded in Glasgow at the infamous Chem19 Studios with Paul Savage who has previously worked with numerous established and diverse Scottish acts such as Teenage Fanclub, King Creosote, The Twilight Sad, Franz Ferdinand and Mogwai.
The album included the addition of a new member multi-instrumentalist Stuart McGachan. Thompson’s explains “Stuart is an accomplished keys, piano and guitar player as well as having a lovely little singing voice and with him we have tried to do something a little different with this selection of songs. We’ve known him for ages and played music with him before so we were pretty sure it would work out. It has just been the four of us since about April 2004 so having someone new with us has been an enjoyable part of the process.”
