New Hope Club

New Hope Club craved authenticity and admired artists like The Beatles, Oasis, and Fleetwood Mac because of their innate honesty in their music. With this new body of work and clear artistic vision, they can be proud that they pushed themselves to make the art they always intended. “Growing up, we loved listening to seminal bands, and in this new album, you can actually hear a bit of that influence. Whereas the last album, we were, saying in interviews ‘Oh, we love The Beatles, and we love The Stone Roses and all these bands, but you couldn’t really hear their inspiration in our music,” says Reece.

Their new direction was also fostered by executive producer Ross Golan, who they enlisted at the end of 2020. He became integral as not only someone who helped shape the new sound of New Hope Club but as a life force as well. For 18 months, Golan and the group collaborated virtually—it was months before they even met in-person.

Golan was blown away by how skilled and hands-on the band was with this project. “Artists with this level of talent don’t exist in 2022. They each write with sophistication and play multiple instruments prodigiously. Blake is an A-list producer in the making, George is incredibly versatile, and Reece knows how to push us all for the best. With these skills, New Hope Club is going to be around for a long time,” he says.

Wanting to share more music with their fans, the band will kick start their next era by releasing two songs sets, paying homage to the A-Side /B-Side dynamic of the past leading to a full album release in 2023.

Each set of songs shows the dichotomy that exists in the band’s soundscape. “It really enabled us to make the sound of the record cohesive, whether the songs range from having a full band to an acoustic song. It’s the same sound, the same guitars which we’ve never experienced before,” says George. With their first set of singles, “Getting Better” and “Girl Who Does Both,” New Hope Club plays both ends of the spectrum, with the former being an exuberant, retro-tinged disco-pop song ideal that flaunts their strengths as a live band and the latter leaning into their songwriting prowess with the delicacy of a stripped-back Simon & Garfunkel-esque ballad. On “Call Me a Quitter,” the group opts for an up-tempo, sunny melody that masks how they could be making more of an effort in their long-distance relationships. “I know, I know, she’s becoming part of the furniture,” Blake sings with a sweet lilt. Its companion track—the upbeat breakup banger “Whatever,” evokes the sunny grooves of Earth, Wind & Fire that’s tempered with a laissez-faire attitude. The boundary-pushing pop anthem “L.U.S.H.” (“Love You So Hard”) shows the band musing about romancing an older woman. “The things you did last night, I can’t get ‘em out my mind,” Blake teases. Inspired by the FIFA soundtrack, “Walk It Out” is an adrenaline rush—the ultimate hype song with a free-wheeling chorus. The only song penned before the pandemic, “Just Don’t Know It Yet” is a stripped-back ballad with rich harmonies that envisions an idyllic future with a lover. On its B Side, “Don’t Go Wasting Time,” the band’s candor shines through with a delicate chorus that expresses how the band refuses to take their success for granted.

“When we met, we were so young; we’ve finally got to the point in our relationship where we talk about everything now. We never push anything under the rug,” says Blake. It’s what makes the group’s latest effort more honest than ever—and that’s something they can be proud of.”