Weekly News Round-Up: The Verve, The Maccabees and more

Missed any of the week’s top news stories? Live4ever has it covered with our Weekly News Round-Up, looking back at ten of the biggest headlines we featured during the last seven days in British music.

Urban Hymns

The Verve‘s 1997 album Urban Hymns is to get an extensive reissue later this year on its 20th anniversary.

Now remastered and mixed by original co-producer Chris Potter and Metropolis’ Tony Cousins, as were the previous re-releases of A Storm In Heaven and A Northern Soul, the LP will now be available in various fresh forms including a super deluxe CD edition.

Ringo Starr has enlisted the assistance of some old friends on Give More Love, his 19th studio album.

Ringo picked the occasion of his 77th birthday to unveil its details; the much publicised studio collaboration with former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney confirmed on We’re On The Road Again and Show Me The Way, while Dave Stewart is involved on King Of The Kingdom and So Wrong For So Long.

The Killers will launch into a UK and Ireland arena tour this November in support of their new album Wonderful Wonderful.

The substantial menu starts with a show at Genting Arena in Birmingham on November 6th, while the Irish leg takes place on the 16th and 17th via gigs at the 3Arena in Dublin and Belfast’s SSE Arena. It wraps up with two nights at the O2 Arena in London.

Noel Gallagher has taken to Instagram to confirm the addition of Gem Archer to the High Flying Birds for his stint supporting U2.

Archer – a former bandmate and close sidekick of Gallagher in Oasis – has made occasional live appearances with Noel since that band came to an end in 2009, but until 2014 was primarily a member of Beady Eye with the other estranged Gallagher brother Liam.

What with their penchant for all things Mulder and Scully and frontman’s Matt Bellamy’s assertion last week that he might have been abducted by aliens when he was a teenager (less striking is the qualifying quote ‘it might have been a helicopter or something’), the unveiling by Muse of a first ‘AI’ music video is especially fitting.

The Maccabees live in London, January 2016. (Photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)

The Maccabees took their final bows at Alexandra Palace in London on July 1st as their farewell tour of the UK came to an end.

Special guests including Jamie T and Mystery Jets joined them on stage, while the still irresistible 2012 single Pelican gave fans a fitting verse to say goodbye to a band which has grown during the last decade into one of Britain’s best.

Super Furry Animals have shared the demo of Play It Cool from their upcoming reissue of Radiator.

Last year’s re-release of debut album Fuzzy Logic is being followed up with the similar treatment of its 1997 successor on July 28th.“For three, contented months we lived in a house in constant earshot of military aircraft, to make ‘Radiator’ the album that it was,” the band have said.

Liam Gallagher has posted his official video for Chinatown, the second track taken from debut solo album As You Were.

As You Were is due in October, three years on from the dissolution of Gallagher’s post-Oasis band Beady Eye. It features numerous co-writing credits with Adele collaborator Greg Kurstin, and Simon Aldred of Cherry Ghost on For What It’s Worth.

Ed Sheeran dominates the list of the best selling albums in the UK so far this year.

The Beatles‘ reissue of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has already done enough to get it inside the Top 20. Further back, the Oasis headlines which have been particularly plentysome during recent months – for reasons both poignant and factitious – mean the band’s singles collection Time Flies… is among the top 40 biggest sellers.

Pretty Vicious will tour the UK in October after their appearance at Cardiff’s HoyFest on September 30th.

Gigs will take place in Newcastle, Manchester, Brighton, Birmingham and Glasgow, tickets went on sale last Friday, July 7th.