The Delines return to tour the UK and EU in support of their 4th album out February 2025. The album was just mastered and bring more of their country-soul. The debut record, COLFAX, appeared in 2014 and surprised fans and critics alike. Evoking a beat-up Dusty Springfield or a weary Rickie Lee Jones, COLFAX made over a dozen top ten year end lists. It was a four-year wait until their sophomore effort, THE IMPERIAL was released. Singer, Amy Boone spent much of that time in hospital beds recovering from serious injuries sustained in a car accident in Austin, Texas. When she was just strong enough to stand she finished THE IMPERIAL, a record that spent two weeks on top of the UK official Americana charts with the band playing sold out shows across the UK and Europe. The band returned with their cinematic third album THE SEA DRIFT which Americana UK and BBC6 Gideon Coe both made their ‘Album of the Year’. Penned by guitarist and songwriter Willy Vlautin with arrangements by keyboardist Cory Gray and the rhythm section of Sean Oldham and Freddy Trujillo.
Vlautin is no stranger to critical acclaim, enjoying cult success and rave reviews from the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, Uncut, Rolling Stone and Mojo, both as a novelist with seven books under his belt (two of his books have become major films with Lean On Pete currently being made into a Netfilx movie out 2025). Willy, Oldham and Trujillo also lead the alt-country outfit Richmond Fontaine whom released over ten albums before breaking up in 2016. 2022/23 saw the Delines performing at EU festivals plus releasing two more singles plus a soundtrack, the band will be playing songs from including past classics.
Special Guest PETER BRUNTNELL
The new reecord Houdini And The Sucker Punch sees Peter re-employing his long-term band members Mick Clews on drums, Dave Little on electric guitar and Peter Noone on bass, along with a number of his favourite musicians making cameos throughout.
In an uncertain number of years time, it will be acceptably cool to say that you first got into non-Grammy-winning artist Peter Bruntnell through his classic 2024 album Houdini And The Sucker Punch, before then going back and discovering his back catalogue of yet more “classics”. And you were there! You saw him live. You were one of those “10” people who saw him play in that modestly-sized room, almost 30 years into his career.
So here we are again. Three years on, another album into Peter’s 13 or 14 album catalogue and shouldering the burden of even more sublime reviews. Every possible positive adjective has been called into play, although it must be noted that the word “sublime” can never be used enough. Not even 2021’s primarily solo, slightly synthy lockdown album succeeded in putting an end to his non-success, despite Mojo echoing the plea that, “Somehow, some way, this cult and infinitely class songwriter must get his due wider recognition”. The Scottish Daily Express with its 5 star review, slightly frustrated, said, or perhaps yelled, “I’m getting tired of saying this: He’s brilliant”.