Can music really save your mortal soul? Maybe…Maybe not… But after listening to the new Michael Head and the Red Elastic band album Dear Scott you will surely think it can says Stephen Canavan…

Head first gained attention as a member of the Pale Fountains in the early 1980s with his best friend Chris "Biffa" McCaffrey. The band suffered from critical and commercial apathy, and the band split around 1987. Shortly afterwards, McCaffrey died from a brain tumour.It's still fresh in people's ears, I think. Even now when I'm out around Liverpool, the response I get is fantastic. There's always the odd person coming up to chat or shouting from a car window, like, short and sweet: 'Love the f****** album, lad'. That blows me away." On The Ten, he takes a whimsical bus ride –‘Floating past Kenny, up passed the icy and Yorkies where we’d sing’– which ends up at an abattoir and yet still seems full of other-dimensional magic. It’s a place some though at least long to escape; Dear Scott’s easy rolling centrepiece is American Kid, where good friends who’ve grown up together in the city are divided by a trans-Atlantic obsession; ‘It goes from Elvis to Tarantino across your bedroom walls’, only for an admission of love from one to the other to make things somehow platonically better. In episode #86 of The XS Noize Podcast, Mark Millar catches up with one of the greatest ever British songwriters Michael Head of The Red Elastic Band. Michael Head leads his Red Elastic Band into a fresh chapter with optimism and some of the best music of his career. His new Bill Ryder-Jones-produced album, Dear Scott, will be released on Fri, 27 May 2022, via Modern Sky UK. So you kind of have to be like, 'Thank you – is right'. And, as the dust has settled it's slowly dawned on me like, 'We've all done well there.' And that includes Dave [Pichilingi] at the record company, everyone who helped.

Released by independent label Modern Sky, the Bill Ryder-Jones produced Dear Scott also earned the guitar-wielding singer-songwriter his first ever 'proper' Top 10 album when it hit Number Six on the Official Chart. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. On releasing the single, Head says: “Kismet’s about being stranded, the kindness of strangers, love and destiny.” That head space, like all the others here, is somewhere not in thirties’ California but in Liverpool, not so much a home but a universe for Head who finds its perpetual unwritten uniqueness equally wife, mistress, mother and child.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

In a rare, collaborative move for the songwriter, for whom isolation as a writer usually reveals the clearest voice, Kismetsnaked from the rehearsal room. It bears the hallmarks as the four-piece The Red Elastic Band wax and wane through Postcard jangle-pop and squalling-solo wig-outs, while Head, in vintage form, glances sing-a-long syllables off the swaggering beat. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.

Michael talks about starting with the Pale Fountains, Dear Scott, songwriting, and more in this interview. Listen to episode #86 of The XS Noize Podcast with Michael Head - BELOW: Dear Scott’, the much-anticipated album from Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band, is out today. Teeming with characters and places, its songs are essentially short stories, writes Kevin Pearce.

Indeed, listening to Dear Scott now, it's hard to believe that the songwriter didn't have an inkling that they were on to something really special while recording the album. I even said to the lads, 'Before we finish these [gigs], there'll probably be one or two new ideas on the bubble'. It's exciting for me personally, but also for them too, because it helps keep things fresh."

History will tell whether Dear Scott is a wonderful, sensuous moment of clarity – and step towards an autumnal career filled with similar gems – or merely another bolt of lightning. Head and The Red Elastic Band look ahead to their first comprehensive UK Tour since forming in 2021, setting off on the eve of Dear Scott’s release to play a run of eight dates. Including a huge homecoming at Liverpool’s Eventim Olympia on Fri 10 June 2022 and visiting London to play the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Sat 11 June 2022, the full run of shows is confirmed as follows: And you're right, it's been a great year. We were only saying the other night that it's been brilliant, so doing some gigs right up to Christmas will keep the momentum going for the album.Taking in cities from Glasgow to Manchester and beyond to Bristol, Head and The Red Elastic Band complete the forthcoming tour with two, huge theatre shows, the first at Liverpool’s Eventim Olympia on Fri 10 June 2022 and the second in London, taking in the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire the following night.