The Bracknall - Waiting For The Lights To Change
The Bracknall are on the road to their biggest ever gig at Koko this December. Along the way they support Embrace in November but, kicking proceedings off is their new EP ‘Waiting For The Lights To Change’ Recorded in West Yorkshire, the tracks are produced by Embrace’s Richie McNamara.
Click the image to pre-order the EP
Success breeds confidence, and The Bracknall are bristling with it. ‘Heavy on the Feeling’ takes everything that made album two victorious and hits harder. The riffs bite, the key changes arrive with purpose and the whole thing plays out like a widescreen battle. An animalistic solo summons a tidal wave of defiance as the band wrestle with heavy yet accessible psych-rock. It is the kind of seismic rock ’n’ roll Oasis spent years searching for after ‘What’s the Story…’ but never quite found.
That same sense of scale surges through ‘Where I Belong’ and ‘Got What We Came Here For’. The former wastes no time, aggressive riffs giving way to a melodic drop that lands with the rush of ecstasy. Yet for all its desire to escape, ‘Where I Belong’ never forgets where it came from. The music reaches for the horizon while the lyrics remain rooted in the towns that shaped them. Add Jack Dacey’s smoky vocal and there is a humility beneath the grandeur, the kind of lived in authenticity that great rock ’n’ roll cannot fake.
Where ‘Where I Belong’ screams set opener, ‘Got What We Came Here For’ is destined for sunsets and lights-up moments. This is the sound of a band realising their worth, a knowing that greatness is there to be grabbed. The swirling psych solos create a space for dreamers and idlers to swallow the bullshit of work and drift away into happier climates.
The EP’s most intriguing moment arrives with ‘What Am I To Do’. For all The Verve’s success, few bands have dared venture into their more celestial corners and emerged with anything of their own. The Bracknall drift between the moonlit exploration of Nick McCabe on ‘A Storm in Heaven’ and Ashcroft’s lost soul beauty of ‘Weeping Willow’ and ‘Space and Time’, but crucially, they never disappear beneath the influence.
Instead, they drag that vastness into their own world. Their melodic urgency does not simply nudge rock ’n’ roll forwards, it heaves it towards the horizon and watches it disappear into eternity. That is The Bracknall’s gift. They find something cinematic in ordinary lives, turning familiar streets, restless minds and everyday escape into something enormous. Dacey bends his vocal cadence around the song while a searching guitar solo seems to stretch beyond the skyline.
Click the image below for tickets to their biggest ever headline gig:
