Weekly News Round-Up: David Bowie, Suede and more

You’re in the right place if you’ve missed any of the week’s top news stories – here Live4ever’s Weekly News Round-Up presents a recap of eight of the biggest headlines in British music we featured during the last seven days.

Photo: Paul Bachmann

Record Store Day 2018 releases were naturally dominating the last week’s UK Record Store Chart, with David Bowie‘s Welcome To The Blackout at number one.

There was new entries all the way down the Top 20, with more special RSD issues from the likes of Arcade Fire, The National and The Cure proving popular.

The View’s frontman Kyle Falconer has confirmed the details of his debut solo album.

No Thank You will be released on July 27th, following up his first single Poor Me which was unveiled last month and inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous mantra ‘poor me, poor me, pour me another drink’. “Every day you get triggers and traumas stuck in your head, and you’re hearing all of these horrible stories,” he said.

Drenge have brought a long wait for new music to an end.

Since 2015’s brilliant Undertow album was wrapped up, fresh material has been restricted to the road-testing stage during sporadic live outings, but now a single entitled This Dance is out and streaming online. “We sat in a tiny bedroom with a fizzing guitar line, programming some beats into a computer,” Eoin Loveless says.

Florence & The Machine will follow-up How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful and a 2015 Glastonbury headline performance with the new album High As Hope.

Out on June 29th, it contains the recently shared Sky Full Of Song as well as the official lead single Hunger. The LP was recorded in London and Los Angeles and features numerous guest appearances; from Sampha, Jamie xx and Kamasi Washington among others.

Ray Davies will continue the Americana series which started with his 2013 memoir and continued through last year’s solo album with the release of Our Country: Americana Act II on June 29th.

The 2017 LP was described as an ‘autobiographical work, chronicling the inextricable role America has played Davies’ life’, and this second volume is set to be more of the same. It was recorded at Konk in London with guitarist Bill Shanley.

Brett Anderson leading Suede live in Manchester (Photo: Gary Mather for Live4ever Media)

Suede‘s next album will be released on September 21st.

The Blue Hour is set to be their eighth studio album and third since the 2010 reunion. “‘The Blue Hour’ is the time of day when the light is fading and night is closing in,” a statement reads.

The video for Liam Gallagher‘s most recent single Paper Crown has been shared.

It features on the Oasis frontman’s debut solo LP As You Were, whose success has propelled Gallagher back to the top of the UK’s live circuit, sparking a number of outdoor headline gigs and festival appearances this summer.

LIFE have unleashed the first slice of new material since last year’s Popular Music debut LP.

Grown Up begins the trail to the band’s second studio album, frontman Mez has said of it: “Grown Up is about getting to grips with adulthood and wanting to fall in love again.”

Mike Skinner will take his Streets comeback into 2019 with another set of UK dates.

A handful of brand new tracks have been released since Skinner brought The Streets back in October 2017 to go with a Greatest Hits European tour which concluded over three nights at the Brixton Academy in London.

Spring King have announced a UK tour for September with their second studio album expected this year.

The band will play dates in Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bristol, Nottingham, Birmingham, London and Manchester as they look ahead to the successor to their 2016 debut Tell Me If You Like To.