Tv Priest

TV Priest at McChuills

TV Priest are back, but the sermon’s not the same. “This is a song about leisure, our fears and pleasures,” vocalist Charlie Drinkwater announces as the group’s exhilarating new album growls into gear – words that at first may seem to signal more of what came before.

After all, the Sub Pop innovators have become one of Britain’s most vital new bands on the back of furious songs about a world undone by dark desires, both primal and political.

But that sound Drinkwater described, tapping into our leisures – “automatic dreams on 65” screens,” the lyric continues – couldn’t feel more different this time around.

“It’s a pretty big evolution,” beams the frontman, reflecting on how Cartoons sees TV Priest abandon their format post-punk pulpit. The broadcast now is a little more tender. A little more melody mixed in the Molotov cocktail. It’s the sound of a band thunderously reborn.

But arriving at it almost broke them apart.