RED LORRY YELLOW LORRY
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry “Driving Black” Secure your limited edition on bandcamp - release date 6th December
Reviews for EP
“Will wonders ever cease? Maybe we can have nice things after all… the droning icecaps that have so defined their chilly clime have barely receded in the intervening layover, just curtailed enough to modernize the context for the 21st century… this is undeniably the Lorries, and we should be nothing less than chuffed (as the Brits say) to be in their presence again.”
– Neal Agneta, The Big Takeover (US)
“… (the fact) that Red Lorry Yellow Lorry still sound essential and contemporary is equally testament to their songwriting and delivery, and the bleak times in which we find ourselves. Putting the social and political backdrop to one side, the Driving Black EP is an absolute triumph. There are no half-measures, nothing is weak or half-arsed, and it’s – remarkably – as if they’ve never been away.”
– Christopher Nosnibor, Aural Aggravation (UK)
“…their first new studio record in more than thirty years… It’s been worth the wait… RLYL have certainly improved with age and easily eclipse their many copyists over the intervening years… you are left in no doubt that they haven't lost their edge…”
– Alan Rider, Outsideleft.com (UK)
“6 tracks 100% Full-Steam-Post-Punk-Power, as we are used from The Lorries. You are going to put your finger on the ‘volume-up’ button of your music player!”
– Hayley CMX, Peek-a-Boo Magazine (Belgium)
Reviews for Single
“While reunion gigs and a handful of new(er) tracks have come and gone over the past couple of decades, the prospect of a full EP’s worth of new tunes from Chris Reed & co. is an exciting one. Folks who recall the band heading in a ‘leather and Americana’ direction similar to that charted contemporaneously by the Mary Chain at the tail end of their original run will hear that thread being picked up again here.”
– Alex Kennedy, I Die: You Die (US)
“…they sound as good as they should for their level of experience and the million hours they’ve spent doing what they love… pushing the limits on how many times we can move our head in 3 and a half minutes.”
– Rowan Blair Calver, Sound Read Six (UK)
“…you feel it in your bones and it resonates in your head, becoming another integral piece of fabric in memories... a great and gritty rock song… I am beyond excited knowing that the journey isn’t quite over yet.”
– Adele Sinnamon, Onyx Music Reviews (Australia)
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry Sign Record Deal with COP International, Announce Final Album and EPs
Formed during the early eighties in Leeds, England, seminal post-punk band Red Lorry Yellow Lorry have just announced a label deal with COP International. The new signing will see the long-awaited release of what is expected to be the last ever Red Lorry Yellow Lorry album, Strange Kind of Paradise; along with further EP releases containing singles, b-sides, and remixes.
Photo by Neil Chapman
COP International’s Christian Petke, says:
“As the founder of COP International, I am thrilled beyond measure to announce the signing of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry to our label. This is more than just a professional endeavor for me; it's a deeply personal milestone. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’s music served as the soundtrack to my formative years, inspiring my own musical journey. The chance to contribute to the legacy of a band that has influenced me so profoundly is an honor I can scarcely put into words. To all the fans who have been touched by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’s music, I extend my deepest gratitude for joining us on this exhilarating adventure.”
The band has been burned in the past by label deals, ultimately losing control over most of your recorded work. How are you feeling about signing to a new label, COP International? (postpunk.com)
“They seem to embody the original spirit of the post-punk movement, but in a more contemporary way, taking into account that the music has moved on. But I think they’ve taken on the kind of innovation that was so important about the original post-punk movement. It’s a very compatible label, and we look forward to working with our fellow “brothers on the same beat”, like Cassandra Complex and John Fryer.
John Fryer has made some of my favourite records of all time, and they really were at the bleeding edge of post-punk music. I think for myself, and for most people my age, we’ve talked about this quite a lot, and we all seem to come to the same conclusion, that the Factory back catalogue, and the 4AD catalogue, is just an example of how to run a record company properly; and how to just maintain a really high standard of releases, and artwork, and themes that just run through the whole body of work.
And I see a lot of that reflected now in what (label head) Christian Petke and John Fryer, and their designer Greg Rolfes, are doing with COP International. They seem to be a very forward-thinking and innovative label, but one that does understand where the ethos of the post-punk movement started, and who embrace the original idea that made the movement so exciting.
I’m immensely proud, and feel that this Lorries album, which means so much to everyone that’s worked so hard on it, has found the right home. That’s what I feel: it’s found the right home, and will be treated with the kind of respect and appreciation that it deserves. It feels like it’s landed on the right doorstep.” Dave ‘Wolfie’ Wolfenden
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry formed in 1981, named for an English children’s tongue-twister. Between 1982 and 1985, ‘the Lorries’, as they became known to fans, released a string of highly influential singles and EPs; followed by the albums Talk About the Weather (1985), Paint Your Wagon (1986), Nothing Wrong (1988) and Blow (1989). Throughout this period, nearly all of the band’s singles, EPs, and albums scaled the upper reaches of the NME’s UK independent charts.
Routinely touring the UK, Europe, and North America; at the height of their influence and creative output, the band’s signature sound was defined by founder and frontman Chris Reed’s cavernous, scowling vocals; the sonorous, droning, angular guitar textures of both Reed and longtime songwriting partner, Dave ‘Wolfie’ Wolfenden; coupled with grinding bass, and a near-industrial concoction of bludgeoning, neo-tribal live percussion and ice-cold mechanical drum-machines.
With comparisons drawn to Joy Division, Killing Joke, Big Black, and fellow Leeds “drum-machine bands” (The Sisters of Mercy, The March Violets, The Three Johns); Red Lorry Yellow Lorry have often been linked with the advent of ‘goth rock’. Although they welcomed the dark embrace of the goths, the Lorries themselves maintained that they were always more heavily inspired by bands at either end of the punk explosion, from the MC5 to Wire; and by “industrial” artists including Australia’s J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus).
As Reed’s (and Wolfenden’s) songwriting matured and developed over the course of their career, the Lorries’ later releases incorporated heavier use of keyboards and acoustic guitars, and more spacious, polished pop melodicism. The transition was warmly received by critics of the band’s more jarring and inaccessible early releases, but met with mixed response from longtime fans.
During the early 1990s, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry gradually disintegrated. Unable to crossover into the mainstream pop charts, they were dropped by their label Situation Two in 1990, while Wolfie left to join The Mission’s worldwide Deliverance tour. Chris Reed continued with a new lineup, releasing the fifth album Blasting Off (1992), which went largely unnoticed. Wolfie returned for one final tour of Germany, before Reed put the band on indefinite hold.
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry was resumed as an active band in 2003, with mainstays Chris Reed and Wolfie ultimately joined by bassist Simon ‘Ding’ Archer (The Fall, Pixies, PJ Harvey); and drummer Martin Henderson (Skeletal Family, The Batfish Boys, The Mekons). Between 2003 and 2015, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry often appeared at festivals including M’era Luna (Germany), Whitby Gothic Weekend (UK), and Wave Gotik Treffen (Germany), among others; in between their own headline tour-dates around the UK and Europe.
Photo by Neil Chapman
Strange Kind of Paradise, the forthcoming album, was recorded during this period; engineered and produced by bassist Simon ‘Ding’ Archer, whose production credits also include work for The Fall, The Membranes, Inca Babies, 1919, Expelaires, Spear of Destiny and countless others. By the time the Lorries dissolved for a second time, however, the Strange Kind of Paradise album remained unreleased in the vaults of the band, where it has languished in that state ever since.
Photo by Neil Chapman