D Smack U Promotion presents: The Charlatans (UK)

The Charlatans have reached a higher state of grace. Twenty-seven years since they first bagged a Number One album with ‘Some Friendly’, they’re still achieving fresh career highs, dreaming up new music that redraws their own map, increasingly assured of their own collective identity, of who they are as a band. The Charlatans will play for Prague audience on February 21 at MeetFactory.

 Their trajectory has few parallels in British rock, and it’s all set to continue with the release of ‘Different Days’, their brilliant 13th long-player, which finds them never more forward-looking, yet equally never more self-defining, or relevant. As Tim Burgess pointedly sings on one anthemically optimistic track called ‘There Will Be Chances’, “I left when I thought about the past, a place I love but I can’t go back – the present’s where it’s at”.  

Just listening to ‘Different Days’ makes you feel like a positive force has entered your life – and this, in a year when, as the title implies, the political outlook has shifted dramatically, bringing unforeseen prejudice, anxiety and division across the world. Explains Tim, “To us, the album represents an upbeat view of a world that might well be falling apart, in a time where you have to work out who your friends are, and gather them around you.”

This time, the core surviving quartet of Burgess, bassist Martin Blunt, guitarist Mark Collins and keyboard player Tony Rogers, opened their doors to allow an enviable cast of friends to contribute to their latest work. Initially, this happened out of necessity: following the passing of founding drummer Jon Brookes in 2013, they have yet to appoint a permanent replacement. So, the first call went out to Pete Salisbury, the former Verve sticksman, who’d stepped in to help the band get up and running again on tour, through those difficult months of illness, loss and grieving.

Their previous album, ‘Modern Nature’, had also been made under that cloud, but had come out amazingly positively – and, indeed, modern. “It was a very soulful and cathartic record,” says Martin Blunt, The Charlatans’ founder and avatar, who has captained the band through all its ups and downs. “Bereavement does change your perspective on things. On previous albums, it had all got a bit fragmented, but I think we realised that what makes us, is all of us in the room together”.

Pristine and confident, ‘Modern Nature’ drew critical praise across the board, and duly notched up their eighth Top Ten on the album chart, all capped off with a lifetime achievement award from Q magazine. 

More info: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/551585698511717/ 
www.thecharlatans.net

Tickets: 
690 CZK (+ fees) at GoOut.cz, Ticketpro, Ticketportal 
790 CZK at the door 
Presale starts on 28 November.

Please contact the promoter of the show Michal Rejžek michal@dsmacku.com (D Smack U Promotion) in case of any questions.