High flying Welsh rockers Those Damn Crows are thrilled to confirm their fourth studio album, “God Shaped Hole”, will be released on April, 11th, 2025, via long-time label home Earache Records.
What separates Those Damn Crows from so many other bands is the beating emotional heart at the centre of their music. “God Shaped Hole” reaffirms the band’s place at rock’s top table. It marries music fueled 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 frontman Shane Greenhall. “Maybe I’m a little too honest and reveal a bit too much of myself. But I think that’s what people connect with”.
That kind of emotional openness is there in today’s new single “Glass Heart”, available now on all streaming platforms. It’s shimmery pop-rock overtones gloss over a deeper meaning underneath. The song finds the singer admitting to his own insecurities and embracing them.
“The whole premise of that song is, ‘I’m going to tell it like it is, flaws and all’”, says Shane. “I can be anxious, I can be unstable when sometimes It looks like I got my shit together, and have all the answers. I’ve been hurt and broken – who hasn’t got a glass heart? But it’s OK, because we’re still here, we’re still fighting”.
Watch the official video for “Glass Heart” below.
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.
“Every album, I say, ‘This one is going to be really heavy’”, says Shane with a laugh. “But it never really works out like that, because if you go into something with a pre-conceived idea of what you want, you will fail every single time. You have to let the music choose, that’s how I see it”.
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 pummeling “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 gleaming pop rock gem, and the soaring “The Night Train” possesses a beautifully restrained, folky edge.
“I almost feel like this is an album of singles”, describes Shane. “It’s like a playlist, it shows off the range of music we love more than any album we’ve done. There’s so many different flavours, but it’s all still recognisable as us”.
Pre-order “God Shaped Hole” here.
Tracklist:
1. Dancing with the Enemy
2. Glass Heart
3. Fake
4. Dreaming
5. Let’s Go Psycho
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 alive 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”.
Those Damn Crows are currently gearing up for their biggest ever headline show to date, taking place at Cardiff’s Utilita Arena on Saturday 14th December. Special guests are Sophie Lloyd and Himalayas. Tickets are on sale now.
Weblinks:
thosedamncrows.com
www.facebook.com/thosedamncrows
