THOSE DAMN CROWS SHARE DEEPLY PERSONAL NEW SINGLE “STILL”
10th December 2024Affable Welsh rock squad THOSE DAMN CROWS are levelling up for the festive season by dropping not only a brand new single from their forthcoming new album God Shaped Hole, but by announcing a very special string of underplay headline dates for March 2025.
Available on all DSPs now, fans can unwrap the deeply personal new single “Still.” The track is taken from God Shaped Hole, which is set for release on April 11th via Earache Records.
The festive season can be a difficult time for many. Often appearing very jocular, frontman Shane Greenhall opens up about one of his lowest moments, when he was at his most vulnerable, in the new track.
Shane shares, “‘Still’ is an exact time and place where in my mind the thought of ‘the end’ was more comforting than actually being here. I don’t reflect with any negativity at all, in fact quite the opposite. Thankfully… through music I’m constantly reminded that all thoughts pass, and all forms are temporary, reinforced when I visit my ‘go to’ place on the coast of Southerndown, where I had those thoughts and wrote this song.
I always sense and feel a contradicting force/truth there, validating just how tiny and insignificant we all are yet how incredibly lucky and fortunate we are to be here at the same time. Whether we’re here or not, been and gone, the world will carry on regardless, but we can choose to make it a better place while we’re here.”Get the track here.
If you identify with this, speak to someone:
MIND: 0300 102 1234
SAMARITANS: 116 123
SANELINE: 0300 304 7000
NATIONAL SUICIDE PREVENTION HELPLINE: 0800 689652
CALM: 0800 58 58 58
NHS MENTAL HEALTH: 111
CHILDLINE: 0800 11 11
THOSE DAMN CROWS have also announced a dozen, very special underplay headline dates for March 2025 – quite a different affair from their upcoming largest headline show ever at Cardiff’s Utilita Arena on December 14th.
There’s also an exclusive ticket pre-sale for fans pre-ordering the album. Everyone who pre-orders God Shaped Hole from the Earache Records webstore at earache.com/thosedamncrows before 11.59pm on Tuesday will be sent a pre-sale link via email this Wednesday at 10am. Anyone who has already ordered their copy from the Earache Records webstore will get an email with the link too.
Shane adds, “Feels so good to say us Crows are back with a very unique U.K. tour, just a week or two before the release of our new album ‘God Shaped Hole’. We can’t wait to catch up with you all, performing live and loud in these smaller, unique venues. Crowfamily… it’s gonna be killer! Let’s F***in Crow!”
Dates are:
Mon 10th Mar – OXFORD O2 Academy Main Room
Tue 11th Mar – FROME Cheese & Grain
Thu 13th Mar – BOURNEMOUTH Tofs
Fri 14th Mar – NORWICH Waterfront
Sun 16th Mar – EXETER Phoenix
Tue 18th Mar – SHEFFIELD Corporation
Wed 19th Mar – LINCOLN The Drill
Fri 21st Mar – MORECAMBE Alahambra
Sat 22nd Mar – EDINBURGH La Belle
Mon 24th Mar – ABERDEEN Lemon Tree
Tue 25th Mar – LIVERPOOL O2 Academy 2
Thu 27th Mar – LONDON 100 Club
Special guests will be announced in due course.
Tickets go on general sale from 10am GMT on Friday, 13th December and are expected to go very quickly!
What separates THOSE DAMN CROWS from so many other bands is the beating emotional heart at the centre of their music, never truer than with new single “Still.” God Shaped Hole reaffirms the band’s place at rock’s top table. It marries music fuelled by power, passion, and melody to an intelligence and emotional honesty that’s increasingly rare these days. Like all the best music, God Shaped Hole comes from the heart and the head.
“I don’t know how to write any way other than being completely honest,” says Shane. “Maybe I’m a little too honest and reveal a bit too much of myself. But I think that’s what people connect with.”
In the decade-plus since they formed in the fiercely working class town of Bridgend, South Wales, Those Damn Crows have gone from wide-eyed hopefuls playing to 20 people at the Camden Barfly to the leading lights of their generation, a genuine modern rock powerhouse spearheading the scene’s current resurgence, notching up a Top 3 album with 2023’s Inhale/Exhale and sharing massive stages with everyone from Queens Of The Stone Age and ZZ Top to the Alice Cooper/Johnny Depp supergroup The Hollywood Vampires and German punk superstars Böhse Onkelz.
Even by their standards, God Shaped Hole – recorded with longtime producer Dan Weller – covers a lot of musical bases while still retaining Those Damn Crows’ unique identity.
Anthemic opening track “Dancing With The Enemy” and the electrifying “Let‘s Go Psycho!” (released as a single before their triumphant main stage performance at 2024’s Download Festival) are guaranteed crowd-starters, while the supremely melodic “Dreaming” would sound perfect spilling from an open-top convertible as it powers down the Pacific Coast Highway and the pummelling “Spit And Choke” crackles with punky energy. Elsewhere, “Fake” possesses an unexpected yet muscular waltz-like groove as it turns an eye on those who use social media to sell a distorted perception of their own lives, “No Surrender” is as defiant as its title suggests, “Glass Heart” is a gleaming pop rock gem, and the soaring “The Night Train” possesses a beautifully restrained, folky edge.
Pre-order God Shaped Hole here.
God Shaped Hole Track List:
1. Dancing With The Enemy
2. Glass Heart
3. Fake
4. Dreaming
6. No Surrender
7. The Night Train
8. Turn It Around
9. Spit & Choke
10. Still
The album’s detailed artwork, by Alex Tillbrook, has a lot of thought behind it. Shane comments, “It’s a collection of what’s happened in the timeline of (my) life. It’s a combination of realities and dimensions. Each item on the album cover visually represents a song on the album and the emotion tied to it. The album landscape is another dimension where the dream world exists, images/songs/emotions are scattered around the vast desert in disarray. Is the sink hole there to destroy, to take away, or is it the path to a new dimension, new reality, new life? I feel that life, the dream state, psychedelics, technology are all co-existing and blurring the lines while asking the question ‘what is real?'”
At a time when rock music is constantly (and incorrectly) written off, Those Damn Crows prove it’s more vibrant than it has ever been. God Shaped Hole is the sound of a band at the very peak of their powers – but one who are determined to keep building on their achievements.
“We’ve never been the sort of band who sit back and think at what we’ve done,” concludes Shane. “It’s always about what’s the next goal, the next tour. We can’t rest, we need to keep moving forwards. That’s what keeps us alive.”
