Sea Fever: ‘It’s about everything that’s going on, without me getting angry’

A collaboration with New Order’s Tom Chapman and Phil Cunningham, Section 25’s Beth Cassidy and drummer Elliot Barlow, the band have this week released a new single, Beleaguered Land, and embark on a short run of live dates including Hebden Bridge Trades Club.

“I’ve played there once with a band called The Mutineers, but that’s probably going back seven or eight years, maybe even longer,” singer and guitarist Gronow recalls. “But I really like the venue. It’s probably changed quite a bit but even back then it was really well looked after and nicely run, and people there were great, so we’re really looking forward to that.

“We recently played in Halifax as well, that was great. We did that with Chris Hawkins. We did a little acoustic event (at Loafers Vinyl and Coffee) then played a gig after at Square Chapel. That was probably only our third or fourth gig. We’ve not done loads, so it will be good to get a little run together.

“We’re in London on the 17th at the 229 Venue and the day after we’ve got the Gorilla gig (in Manchester), which is with Riding The Low and Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert (from New Order) are going to DJ as well. That will be the biggest Manchester gig we’ve done. We’re sharing it with Riding The Low, they’ve been really nice so we’re looking forward to meeting them all.”

With “quite a lot of stuff left over” from their debut album Folding Lines, which came out last autumn, the band have continued work on its successor. “There is pretty much a second album nearly done; it just needs mixing,” Gronow says. “There are a few bits that just need touching up and I need to do some lyrics here and there and re-sing some sections, but the main part of it is all there. It was two years when you couldn’t gig or do anything else (due to the Covid lockdowns), so we continued writing.

“Tom (Chapman) is very prolific, he works pretty hard, so he will send stuff over quite often and that’s what you want, really, to keep the ball rolling.”

The band plan to introduce another new song, Dilemma, into their live set at the forthcoming shows.

Gronow describes Beleaguered Land as “my take on the way things are” in Britain. “I just like the two words, really,” he says. “I don’t want to get too political but when everything was going on – and it still is, it hasn’t stopped – it’s just my take on it, and it fits well with the music.

“We did that track in Brittany. Me and Phil went there to do some recording and I think we wrote about three tracks. We tried to do different types of tracks. There’s a lot of dance stuff there but we tried to mix it up. That one is more of an indie track. It’s about everything that’s going on, without me getting angry. If you read the lyrics you’ll understand, we managed to squeeze a lot into one song.”

Nine months on from its release, Gronow sees Folding Lines as useful statement of the band’s potential. “It’s quite varied,” he says. “We mixed up the synths and the guitar lines really well with the song structures. We’re really pleased with it as a full album. The relationship between mine and Beth’s vocals really help to round it off.”

The newer songs will be “in a similar kind of vein, in that we will be trying to make each song have its own identity”, he says, adding that Album No 2, due out next year, “will be the brother of Folding Lines, but there’s a darker edge to the new stuff we’ve been writing”.

“There’s a lot of variation on it,” he continues. “There’s some good indie stuff, there’s some good dance stuff on there, there’s some heavy basslines and a mad West Coast track that’s got lots of synths and lots of guitars on it. It will sound like the brother of Folding Lines but we’re trying to give it a different edge.”

Sea Fever play at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on June 23. seafeverband.com