South London post-punk collective TV Priest have today released a video for their new track Press Gang. Their latest effort gives fans a taste of what to expect from the group’s upcoming debut album Uppers, which is due for release on February 5th.
If anyone had wondered why TV Priest once summarised their sound in NME as “1/10th of the power of Mark E Smith with an AS Level in Politics and access to fuzz pedals“, the picture becomes a lot clearer here. Press Gang is an arresting wall of visceral, art-rock guitars coupled with a snarling spoken vocal in the tradition of the The Fall’s late lyrical agitator.
A Twitter post from official TV Priest account states that the track was inspired by frontman Charlie Drinkwater’s grandfather, a former Fleet Street photojournalist and war correspondent, as well as “…news cycles, truth, chip paper, and information.” The post succinctly adds: “It’s also pretty loud.”
The jarring video – directed by up and coming filmmaker and photographer Joe Wheatley – chimes with a playful and sardonic set of lyrics that take aim at the veracity of the modern British press (“You’re better off uninformed”). The band themselves are no stranger to biting social commentary, having taken pot-shots at the monarchy and right-wing nationalism on recent tracks House of York and This Island; the latter of which also features on next month’s new LP.
Vocalist Charlie Drinkwater acknowledged that TV Priest were an inherently political band – albeit not one with a rigid manifesto – in a recent interview with KEXP. He said “As artists we aren’t offering up solutions for living, but maybe we can extend a hand and let someone know that you aren’t alone in feeling under prepared in your responses yet powerful in your convictions. That small boats can still make big waves. That we have a world to win.”
He elaborated further on TV Priest’s non-factional progressive politics in a recent interview Dork, lamenting the criticism aimed at other groups for not being openly left-wing enough. He said “The left, by its very nature, has this polyphony of voices but the trouble is that if you’re right-wing, then it’s very easy to be united on things like low taxes and cutting benefits. There are obviously internal wrangling, but ultimately no-one’s calling out others across the right for being less right-wing than them? Even bands like Sports Team, who I think have been unfairly maligned because the politics are there to see in a lot of their songs, just not as overtly. These guys aren’t the enemy, you know? Let’s aim at the right people.”
For a band whose chaotic energy feels perfectly suited to rowdy shows, it seems unbelievable that TV Priest have only played one actual gig – a pre-pandemic gig in Hackney. Drinkwater told The Line of Best Fit that while the group were looking forward to hitting the road, they were in no rush to push socially-distanced shows ahead of time: “Maybe in 6 months time I will eat my words, but right now I’d rather wait until it’s absolutely safe to play shows so we can showcase what we’re all about. I’m around vulnerable people and haven’t even gone to the pub at the moment to socialise. I just hope that people enjoy Uppers and will have the patience to stick around for us.”
