Catfish and The Bottlemen released their third album ‘The Balance’ on April 26th, which features 11 tracks including massively popular singles ‘2all’ and ‘Longshot’. Alongside the release of the album the band announced new UK Tour dates, tickets are available to pre-order with the purchase of the album from the official Catfish website. 

The Balance is packing classic Catfish tunes, echoing previous albums in their lyrical decisions and strong repeated chorus’. In all aspects, the band have continued the essence of their previous records; keeping up the tradition of black and white album covers, and all song titles being just one word. No one can blame Catfish for sticking to what they know – it has worked well so far, and they have once again created 11 indie anthems for fans to get stuck into. 

With previous lyrics telling tales of life on tour and rocky relationships, The Balance follows suit. ‘Longshot’ kicks the album off with a rip-roaring bang, being consistent with that of previous tracks ‘Cocoon’ and ‘Twice’. Emotional track ‘Mission’ tells fans of the relationship between leading man Van McCann and his father, which is essentially the only thing that really differs this album from the other two. 

The Bottlemen’s style can’t be described as complex, which could be down to the band working with the same producer ‘Tim Lahen’ on all three albums. All the tracks have the same structure and style as always, leaving some fans questioning whether they will ever see a change-up, or the band experiment with different styles and tones of music. 

Of course, this style has worked thus far with their previous albums topping charts and proving a massive success with a sold out tour. It is safe to say that the fans the band have accumulated already will be extremely satisfied with the record, but it will be hard for the band to change the minds of those who haven’t been fond so far. 

On the day of the album release, the band took to Twitter to announce four arena shows November, following a seven date arena tour ending in May. Tickets go on sale on Friday 3rd May, the full dates are listed below: 

04/11 – Birmingham Arena

5/11 – Newcastle Utilita Arena 

10/11 – Liverpool M&S Bank Arena 

11/11 – Leeds First Direct Arena A