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There’s a lot of talk in music and art of authenticity, truthfulness…the ‘real deal’. Many claim to have it, few actually do. Mancunians Aerial Salad have it in droves. This is the band that formed in 2016 with the sole intention of playing legendary punk festival FEST in Gainesville, which they did as teenagers. It didn’t matter that they could barely play, and it was an unmitigated disaster, they still had the front to do it. This is the band that embraced and cut their teeth in the DIY punk world, championed by scene kings Wonk Unit. They were poised on the brink of greatness with their epic debut album ‘Dirt Mall’ in February of 2020 and, well, you know what happened next, every band has the same story, so we’ll park that there…
Instead, Aerial Salad got their collective heads down and pushed and developed their sound away from the three-chord blare of their formative years. This was always a band you were just as likely to see sporting a Stone Roses shirt as you would Snuff. Or a Cypress Hill top as you would see a Pizza Tramp. Aerial Salad describes their sound as ‘Madchester Punk’, a nod to their heroes in Happy Mondays, XTC, and Carter USM, spiced with the current furore spearheaded by burgeoning Brit-wave bands like Yard Act, Shame, and High Vis. Their second album ‘R.O.I’ (and first for highly regarded Venn Records) leans on these influences, driven forward by pure rock’n’roll swagger while conjuring a late-stage, capitalist hellscape through brutalist lyrical narratives. To put it mildly, Aerial Salad is the band you want to see play the breakdown of Establishments afterparty, and you already know you’re gonna love it!
Today we get a fresh taste of ‘R.O.I.’ in new single ‘Big Business’, a song that singer and guitarist Jamie Munro says is about “a growing feeling that money is completely destroying entertainment, the idea came from a common notion that ‘all films are remakes’, it’s also inspired by any form of art, that is composed or created to serve the purpose only of capital.
“In the same way that many feel ‘football is all about money”, it’s the same in music, film, TV,” continues Jamie. “Just about everything in the age we live in is purely for money. The song poses two questions. Has it always been this way? And does it have to be like this?”
Musically inspired by big, massive rock tunes from the 70s and Brazilian 60/70s samba/soul, as well as the usual XTC, The Fall and other brit new wave bands, ‘Big Business’ lulls the listener into a sedate false of security with the calm guitar finger picking intro before the song’s sharp and jagged riff lashes out and the band pile in, wide-eyed and full of intent and purpose.
Recorded lovingly in Vibe Recording Studio, Cheetham Hill in Manchester with Dean Glover, ‘R.O.I.’ is an album that moves seamlessly from pulsing post-punk beats to unstoppable stadium rock anthems. ‘The Same 24 Hours (As Beyoncé)’ is Britpop rallying against the fake facade of influencer culture, ‘All Yer Dreamin’ is Mark E Smith at the Hacienda, ‘Chances’ is Oasis taking on Talking Heads. Aerial Salad find space to explore new genres without losing the sense that this is a band born out of the hard touring, DIY punk scene, a community that continues to be close to their heart.
The northern three piece want us to know they’re as authentic as it gets. Injecting that raw chaos and violent charm from the stage straight into their recordings. Their goal is to make themselves known to everyone and anyone, from rave heads to indie kids, poets to rockers. ‘R.O.I’ is fantastical while acutely bedded in modern post-Brexit, Un-united Kingdom canon. We’re all trying to find our places in this new world, let Aerial Salad be the soundtrack.
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