The Bracknall: 229, London

London outfit The Bracknall played their last, and biggest, gig of the year at 229 this past Saturday. The sold-out gig capped off a year which saw their second album chart at .., support slots with The Ks and The Enemy, and a debut big top slot at the Isle of Wight Festival.

*banner image credit: This Is Gary

Image credit: This Is Gary

Breakout year? On paper, yes. At the 229, the reality felt more akin to the festive seasons' lean into nostalgia. They had the aura of a huge band playing a smaller venue as a rare treat for their fans. Nothing about this night said a new band was making their way. Every song is rapturously sung back at the band, with the band name being bellowed out between songs

‘Good to the Bone’ was the personification of this. Frontman Jack Dacey’s vocals, boisterous but pure, carried a weight of emotion that spilt over in the crowd. Arms aloft, grown men in tears, hugging, singing, dancing, hell, one couple got engaged during it. This year may have been dominated by rock ‘n’ roll's past, but its present and future were right here. Euphoric escapism oozed from their guitars with the kind of guts and glory that leaves dirt in your fingernails and scars on the soul.

The second album, arguably a masterpiece in waiting, bathed the set in a glow of aching power. ‘Ain’t It Shame’ rose like a ready-made anthem, transforming heartbreak into collective release. ‘Get Better’ tapped into something wilder and more primal, sending the room spinning with energy, and it’s key change, oof! It drops with the ecstatic rush of a rave classic, it washes through the crowd like a lifetime’s worth of joy compressed into a single, breathless moment.

Every verse and chorus hit with the force of a triumphant return, welcomed like prodigal sons stepping back into the light. The crowd hurled their fists into the air, banishing their demons as the room ignited with a unity not witnessed since The Enemy. Brutal, beautiful, and utterly human, this was the resurrection of rock ’n’ roll. Once dormant, now blazing, its pulse thundered through the night with undeniable life.

Image credit: This Is Gary

The Bracknall: This Feeling, Truck Festival

Essex DIY success story The Bracknall played This Feeling’s stage at Truck Festival recently. Last time out in London, they headlined Lower Third with a stunning set. This slot was just thirty minutes, could they condense their form into a smaller slot?

*banner image credit: This Is Gary

Image credit: This Is Gary

From the moment the haunting pianos drop on ‘No Way Back For Me’, the air changes at Truck Festival. Rock ‘n’ roll had entered the festival and, through its dogged sense of glory, was going to leave a resounding mark upon all who witnessed.

Former single ‘Get Better’ tapped into the key changes that made us all fall in love with Noel for the first time around, and through the gutsy vocals of Jack Dacey, bred an underdog status that demanded everyone’s emotional investment.

Image credit: This Is Gary

Anthemic sing-alongs nailed, they then brought the noise and confusion with ‘Make It Happen’, Visceral guitars and violent vocals united on this righteous line in the sand. Defiant self-belief on a gargantuan scale roared through the This Feeling tent. As they hit fever pitch, Ed Smith announced himself to the festival as a generational guitar talent. His explosive solo stared into the devil’s eyes and made Satan sit down!

‘I Don’t Understand It’ from their debut album closed proceedings with such grandeur you’d be forgiven for thinking it was Knebworth. The bluesy bohemia of early Kings of Leon collided with the windswept glory of Soundtrack Of Our Lives on the weekend’s one true moment of majesty. Layer upon layer of melody, hope, and togetherness fed through the band with an ease that led them to fold in ‘Love Spreads’. There was an ease and confidence to their playing which offered hope to bands to stick with it. The spotlight may take a while to come, but when it does, be ready, know who you are, and unleash it upon all and sundry with unwavering integrity.

The Bracknall’s latest album and this performance prove a working-class hero is still someone to be, that rock n roll will never die and that maybe, we could all see things they’ll never see once again.

Image credit: This Is Gary

The Bracknall: Lower Third,London

Essex outfit The Bracknall headlined London’s Lower Third for Teenage Cancer Trust last week. It follows the release of their stunning second album ‘Falling Out of View’.

*all images courtesy of Gary Walker

There’s an aura growing around The Bracknall post-release. After ten years of hard graft, everything appears to have fallen into place. The tour supports with The Enemy, plus the Isle of Wight, and By The Sea festival slots have come to a band the guitar scene is desperate to see triumph.

Said desperation was in full voice at the Lower Third. Unsigned bands never used to walk on stage, and have their name bellowed back. As the band rightly said on stage, “What are radio stations fucking playing at” in not playing them and the support bands Rolla and The Slates. The popularity and talent are there, and so, sadly, are a bunch of 90s has-beens with no vision beyond the drudgery of Dave Grohl and reunion tours in charge.

As on the new album, ‘Get Better’ flows into ‘Everything I’ve Ever Known’. The former sends the ultras into a frenzy as frontman Jack Dacey’s vocals hit a fever point that he never ceased from. Then, on ‘Everything I’ve Ever Known’, Kasabian’s early volatility and Noel’s key change magnificence ooze from the soul of the band into the hearts and minds of a sold-out crowd. Every time Dacey melts into ‘I don’t need your permission / I said I’d never listen’, tears filled eyes, and hearts burst forth as the realisation that bands still fucking matter becomes tangible in the room. The guts, the glory, and the utter desperation of it all was a striking moment for anyone lost and downtrodden. Never. Give. Up!

‘Getting Up Again’ and ‘Falling Out Of View’, conjured a great sense of drama. The former soaring and tumbling with heightened anguish, rock ‘n’ roll’s disgrace, and a defiant bravado that legions would line up behind to defend. On ‘Falling Out Of View’, they made the ethereal sound like working-class sublimity. Its potency sucked the audience into their heads, putting their financial worries, relationship woes, and hopes for their kids in full view of their eyelids. Then, the singalong choruses, and the sumptuous licks offered the escapism to blow them away.

Such was the emotive power of the new album in the set; you’d be forgiven for thinking that nothing from their debut cut. ‘Good to the Bone’ and ‘Going Nowhere Fast’ were greeted like old friends, and ‘I Don’t Understand It’ was merged into a devastating performance of ‘Baba O Reilly’.

Nothing encapsulated the evening quite like , ‘I Don’t Understand It’:

“It ain’t the life I'm living / but it’s the one I'm chasing after”.

The industry might have pulled the ladders up for rock ‘n’ roll types in the past fifteen years, but there are other routes to success now. Frank Turner, Shed Seven, and Gerry Cinnamon, among others, have forged paths through the barriers to play massive gigs. May The Bracknall be the next!

The Bracknall – Falling Out Of View

The Bracknall released their second album ‘Falling Out of View’ last Friday via Beat Lab Records. In 2022, their debut album ‘Going Nowhere Fast’ announced the band as contenders to rock n roll’s throne. Will they ascend?

You wait five years for a great guitar record to come along, and then two come at once. First up was Pastel’s ‘Souls In Motion’, and now, The Bracknall have followed suit. In 1994, Noel Gallagher’s songwriting gave a downtrodden nation the seedlings of hope. In 2025, after fifteen years of racing to the bottom, The Bracknall’s brand of Gallagher songwriting and their penchant for soulful rock ‘n’ roll seems set to save us all once again.

Noel’s influence has a beautiful foothold on this record. Frontman and lead guitarist Jack Dacey’s vocals and lyrics on ‘Get Better’ tap into the Burnage soul that yearned to break free. Lyrically, an earthiness leads you into the band’s struggle with the same authentic ease as ‘Definitely Maybe’. Rather than adopt angst-ridden guitars, Jack, brother Harry, and Ed Smith’s guitars land you in the swirling hysteria of ‘I Hope I Think I Know’ and ‘My Big Mouth’ (minus the gak). It’ll land you in the gutter but arm-in-arm with a nation of guitar-loving brothers and sisters.

‘Say You Won’t Be Gone’ leans into the acoustic guitars and heaven-sent production that made Gallagher Senior a national treasure. It is, though, the windswept majesty of Soundtracks of Our Lives that underpins this track's magic. Dacey’s vocal glides between Ashcroft's melodic snarl and Mattias Bärjed's soulful romanticism on this ode to romance.

The album is bookended by two clarion calls in Make It Happen’ and ‘Giving Up Again’. The former flies across the horizon with the debauched grace of All The Young at their peak. Blessed with fingernails in the dirt desperation, it confronts it’s fears with the air of violence that early Kasabian roared onto the scene with. Dacey sings, ‘I could make it happen’ with such unflinching self-belief that mortgages will be wagered on it.

‘Giving Up Again’ sonically storms the gates with its bullish guitars. This relentless assault of the senses is accompanied by a lyrical nugget of gold:

“I’m tired of giving up again”

The euphoria that Dacey delivers in this line is sensational. The Bracknall, a band of over a decade, conveys the agony and ecstasy of band life with sensational euphoria. When otherworldly psyche chimes, it allows for a brief moment of peace and, thus, all of the band’s toil and rejection flood the senses before they come roaring back with tear-inducing power.

This is an album of blessed guitar solos. However, it has its crowning glory on ‘Everything I’ve Ever Known’ and the title track. If Kasabian nudged Oasis forwards in 2004 sonically, The Bracknall have appropriated their best bits and forced rock n roll’s wheel to begin rolling again. The progressive snarl of Liam and Tom Meighan and the rapturous key changes of Noel are injected with the blissed-out sunsets of Soundtracks of Our Lives and the joyfulness of My Morning Jacket. In an era of increasingly spiteful men, The Bracknall have given a generation a chance to hug their best mate and tell them they love them with a pint in hand and a tongue in their ear!  If ‘Everything I’ve Ever Known’ is coming up, then ‘Falling Out Of View’ is the sweet hours of love that follow. Images of the lights going up in Brixton Academy emerge in the wake of this powerful yet ethereal brilliance. Thousands simply must sway in unison as the band walks off triumphantly at the end of their working week.

For many, having Oasis back this summer is a great thing. It’s nothing compared to the guts and glory of The Bracknall slogging their guts out for a decade and unearthing this album-of-the-year contender. Sonically, stylistically, and lyrically, they’ve reimagined what Oasis, Soundtrack of Our Lives for the modern age. In an era that doesn’t give bands a shot, they should be lauded as working-class heroes, for The Bracknall have reminded us all it’s something to be!