Junk Drawer announce album Days Of Heaven; watch the video for ‘Nids Niteca’
The Belfast alternative rock band have a new album out on June 6th via Dundalk’s Pizza Pizza Records.
‘Nids Niteca’ is the first song from the record, out today with a fun racing game music video. The song originally featured on A Litany Of Failures Volume 4.
“There was this empty shopfront we constantly drove past that said ‘NIDS NITECA’ in bold red on the way back from practice in the centre of Belfast. We realised it was this whole topic of conversation from everyone who passed it in town, and no one seemed to ever remember it being open. It began as a sort of rumination on that, a tribute to this little in-joke that exists to a specific type of Belfast person, but really is about the meaning and decay of these structures and the sort of associations that get drawn to them, and how it all exists as much mentally in this hilarious fucking mess of a localised consciousness, that will be forgotten in time.”
The album was recorded over seven days at The Meadow Studios in Wicklow with producer Chris Ryan and is Junk Drawer’s “attempt to make a work of weird, cosmic Ulster music….taking inspiration from the way Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Grateful Dead and the likes created a language and pathway for cosmic American music by drinking in what came before and spitting it out via the inherited angst of growing up in a post-war world.”
“I think a lot of it is about the lost promised futures that Ulster could have had – cross-community new towns, the decay that’s replaced it here, how I see the same thing happening in the middle east; how these memories are being erased, and so much of the history of this place exists within the silence of our fathers.
How my generation has tried to heal by replacing those lost ideals by clinging to old objects, time in nature, the moments we’ve spent together connecting as people at 4am, where you feel like you might have discovered the point of it all. A brief moment in 1985 where a country united over a bespectacled man from Coalisland winning the snooker.
Whatever it is, I think our music has maybe always been about peace, and where you can find it.”
Stevie Lennox.
Pre-Order Days of Heaven from Bandcamp.
The band previously announced a tour with Cola and Mhaol this May/June.
About Junk Drawer / Days of Heaven
Stevie’s brother Jake – who also shares in the guitars and vocals – was in the last couple of years diagnosed with Autism & ADHD, and sings about navigating that, and how it affects his senses, and perspective on the world.
Sonically the band’s well-worn influences are still to be found; from the breeze of sixties West Coast LA, the pink frost of eighties New Zealand to the otherworlds of Zappa and Beefheart. Taking specific weirdo/post-punk influences from Fat White Family, Wire, Meat Puppets, Cleaners From Venus, Richard Dawson and more there is a deft agility to the four-pieces traversal of the genre. This is most stark in the track-listing lay-out – the album is very much a light and shade record. The 6 songs on side-A are short, brighter, snappy ‘pop’ songs, while the second half takes you into the murk of it – more heaviness, longer jams, an entirely different side of the band.
Junk Drawer are Brian Coney (bass/keys), Rory Dee (drums/guitar/vocals) and siblings Stevie (vocals/guitar) and Jake Lennox (vocals/guitar/drums). Their second album ‘Days Of Heaven’ adds new levels of depth and clarity to an already signature sound. Following their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Ready For The House’ (Art For Blind, 2020) and 2022’s crucial stepping-stone EP ‘The Dust Has Come To Stay’, ‘Days of Heaven’ is very much the product of four crate-digging music lovers with open ears and a genuine open-minded approach in their process. It is also the outworkings of rural Ulster strangeness, the provinces’ many lost futures, and the harmony & discordance of a sibling creative partnership. A potent cocktail.
Recorded over seven days at The Meadow Studios in Wicklow with producer Chris Ryan (Robocobra Quartet, Just Mustard, NewDad), ‘Days Of Heaven’ underlines a new moment for the band – one of deep understanding of each other and a sublime confidence in their craft. This is a band who have reached maturity without losing any of that “early-stuff” magic.
“We’ve become more confident with time. We’ve grown to be more of an entity. While the different prominent influences are still there from each member, it all sounds more like us now.”
With regards lyrics and inspiration, Stevie is “past the inward-looking thing that I was at on the first album” and has become much more interested in what it means to be an Ulsterman; a term that has been confused, misused, and seldom understood. This exploration of identity is helped along by psychedelic means, be they chemical, sound, meditation…snooker. This has led to an almost “group-think” understanding within the band.
In ‘Days of Heaven’ the band’s progress is clear. On “Pell Mell” & “Nids Niteca” riffs are tighter than ever before, the lush Casiotone-infused melancholy on “Where Goes The Time” is a thing of beauty, and we’re even treated to the roar from one of Ulster sport’s finest moments in “Black Ball 85”.
But scratch the surface and the world just below is where the real magic lies. This is the real trick shot of Junk Drawer.
Junk Drawer
Instagram | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook
Junk Drawer – Days of Heaven Tracklist
1 Pell Mell
2 Brown Sunshine
3 Nids Niteca
4 The Prisoner
5 Jamie
6 Where Goes The Time
7 Loughgall Circus
8 Black Ball ’85
9 Optigan 2
10 Ghosts Of Lesiure
