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, Broth 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 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 bst 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 Bracknell 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 the laud bands as working-class heroes, The Bracknell reminds us all it’s something to be!