Lakes - Kids (ft. Dan Lambton)
What began as drummer Matt Shaw's acoustic demos back in 2017 quickly developed into a six-piece band, bonding over a love of artists like American Football, Minus The Bear and The Appleseed Cast. The band are Roberto Cappellina (vocals/guitar), Matt Shaw (drums), Blue Jenkins (vocals/glockenspiel), Rob Vacher (guitar) Gareth Arthur (guitar) and
Charlie Smith (bass).
The group has taken influence from mid-western emo, math-rock and alternative indie and combined those with Fleetwood Mac style dual-vocal pop melodies and twinkling glockenspiel to create their trademark “Glock-Rock” sound.
Earning their stripes in pubs and clubs of the Watford music scene, Lakes have been emboldened with a DIY attitude that was born from frustration of life on the peripheries of a capital city. The group's fiercely independent attitude has led them to record all their own music, produce their own music videos and with families of their own, organise child friendly matinee gigs in their hometown.
After self releasing their first two EPs, Lakes joined The LP Cafe in the UK and Friend of Mine Records in Japan to release their debut full length album in August 2019 entitled The Constance LP. This led Washed Up Emo to label them
your new favourite band
and Punktastic to include them on their list of the most important bands of the next decade stating
it’s hard to look past their potential as future frontrunners of the UK emo scene. With nods to midwestern emo giants in American Football and Braid, Lakes create a truly unique take on the genre interlacing shimmering glockenspiels, beautiful harmonies and pop sensibilities in everything they do.
The album was recorded entirely by drummer Matt Shaw in a spare room using a couple of mics and a PC over the space of a year. With no timing or financial restraints that would come from a proper studio, the band took their time crafting the songs and discovering their sound. This has resulted in a truly unique album, one that is completely holistic in its presentation with band members also taking control of photography, graphic design, web design and accompanying music videos.
This summer Lakes returns with an EP, This World Of Ours, It Came Apart, which will be released on July 24, 2020 via Know Hope Records in North America and The LP Cafe in the UK.
The new EP contains two new songs, the first of which Kids was released on Friday 12 June, with the EP following in July. On discussing Kids and the new EP the band said:
As well as being lucky enough to have Dan Lambton (singer of Real Friends until very recently) on a track, we are also super lucky to have the songs recorded by Steph Carter in Watford (guitarist in Gallows), produced and mixed by Neil Strauch in Chicago (who has worked with Owen, Owls, Joan Of Arc, Iron & Wine, Slow Mass) and mastered by Zach Weeks in Massachusetts (at Kurt Ballou's GodCity Studio), with artwork by Dylan England (of the band Del Paxton).
We met Dan through Instagram after he tagged us in a photo of a tattoo he had just got of the artwork from our debut album and some lyrics from our song Ontario. This obviously blew our minds! We met up at the Real Friends show at The Electric Ballroom in London and he was the absolute best host and kindest man. We stayed in touch and we are so honoured to have him sing on this.
Neil Strauch has recorded so many of our favourite albums and it's been a dream having him long-distance-produce these songs for us. Paul from The LP Cafe was doing an Audiotree session in Chicago last year with Nervus and Neil happened to be mixing it, so Paul gave him a copy of our debut album and then the rest is kinda history!
These two songs are also the first to feature our new vocalist Blue Jenkins who joined the band in February.
Warning Signs features another guest vocalist Ed Hutchinson from the legendary Watford hardcore band Incoherence, helping out with those screams at the end! We're excited to be working with Know Hope Records for this 7" and also for our second album which is due out next year. We're huge fans of Vinnie Caruana, Sleep In, String Machine and all the other great bands on that label and the guys there are super nice.
So Kids is the lead track and it’s pretty much a break-up song, buts it’s also pretty bloody good. It’s got a really fantastic melody, soft drums and a great guitar alt pop riff that pulls you in to listen to the track and makes your ears prick up in anticipation of the track ahead.
It works very well With the lyrics with Dan Lambton and Blue Jenkins complementing each other beautifully.
The words also describe those difficult times when you are going through a break up, I really liked the lines “I don’t really know what’s been going wrong, I just feel as though we’ve been moving on, there’s no space to grow, time could not go on, six feet below” and also the lines “a spare room befitting, the children we were kidding, this world of ours it came apart, new friends the beginning, the inquest, the spinning, this world of ours it came apart”.
Lakes write emotional heart on sleeve songs and Kids is no different, it’s an outstanding track, excellent constructed and just fantastic vocals that add to the emotion.
Kids appears on the band's upcoming Know Hope Records debut 7"/EP 'This World of Ours, It Came Apart', which will be released on July 24.
This can be Pre-ordered here:
https://knowhoperecords.limitedrun.com/categories/lakes
Give Kids a stream now:
https://open.spotify.com/album/2G1v1lvqSsq06R9ICjg2KC?si=O85AuScKTCqplW8Q4vDW2Q
Lakes can be followed on Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Spotify:
https://www.facebook.com/ourbandlakes/
https://instagram.com/ourbandlakes?igshid=1sr6h6sbx7wfb
https://twitter.com/ourbandlakes
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3FsRoxn81LEbOBSHb60T8G?si=uELsKg76S9C0I9e3wuhnhQ
