SHAMBOLICS – Scottish four-piece to release ‘Love Collides’ on Creation 23 this Autumn

Like a last-chance display of affection to save a relationship on the rocks, the Fife four-piece put their everything into a track that makes for heart-in-mouth listening. 

“Love collides is a song about when a relationship is on the brink and is ‘forever going wrong’” explains the band’s Darren Forbes.

As two lovers head on a collision-course towards a seismic showdown, ‘Love Collides’ spirals through a score of complex time signatures, myriad key changes, lovelorn harmonies and electrifying solos.

“The track contrasts between minor key and lyrics about how everything is breaking and then opens up in the chorus in a major key with optimistic lyrics.” Says Forbes. “Love is colliding but we can keep it together.”

Clocking in at just over 3 and half minutes and delivered at pace, the lyrics cascade through the kaleidoscope of mixed-feelings and split-second decisions that reel through the mind on the precipice of a break-up. With drama reverberating from every note, ‘Love Collides’ rivets with a palpable sense of emotion and a febrile urgency that recalls the early masterworks of The Smiths or The Cure.

Recorded at Eggman Studios in the band’s hometown of Fife, and produced and engineered by Darren Forbes, Scott Thomson, and Scott Williamson. 

Signed by Alan McGee to his Creation 23 label last summer, ‘Love Collides’ is the latest release from one of the imprint’s sharpest prospects and is the direct studio successor to: ‘Sandra Speed’, which was released before lockdown earlier this year. Not ones to sit still, the Shams preoccupied themselves during the pandemic with a series of classic cover versions in their distinctly dreamy style, including Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’, The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, ABBA’s ‘Mamma Mia’ and The Stones‘ ’Sympathy for the Devil’; finding a raft of new fans with their uplifting reworkings.

Already firm favourites on Scottish turf, the four-piece have become accustomed to selling out venues like St Lukes in Glasgow and The Water Rats in London in a heartbeat. With word spreading fast since their signing to Creation 23, last year  the band sold-out their entire 7” vinyl run for debut single ‘Chasing A Disaster’ on pre-sales alone, before being greeted by a sell-out UK headline tour in the Autumn.

Steadily gaining fans at press too, the band’s releases on Creation 23 have earned repeated plays on Steve Lamacq’s BBC6 Music Show, plus seen plaudits from Clash Magazine and more, who have praised their “soaring guitar pop that recall everyone from The La’s to Blossoms and beyond”.

Dreamy of design and artful of execution, ‘Love Collides’ encapsulates everything that Shambolics are about. Released 2 October 2020, the latest from this Fife four-piece may be a break-up song, but is guaranteed to have plenty more smitten yet.