LA Priest - Beginning

Sam Eastgate returns. Reunited with producer Erol Alkan for the album.

These two have form. The last time they came together, we got ‘Fantasy Black Channel’ by a band called Late of the Pier. You look at what was in the charts in 2008, then out of nothing - like a midnight airstrike - there’s this. The most imaginative, mind-bending, forward-thinking pop records of the last two decades, and there’s many people that share that view. They won fans in Dave Grohl and Mike Skinner, Metronomy’s Joe Mount called them the “greatest band ever”. Simian Mobile Disco’s James Ford puts it best: “To me, the mid-noughties seemed to be about trying to define a new kind of pop music by blurring boundaries and painting in bright colours. The colours that Late of the Pier used were the brightest of all”. No pressure, then. But where LOTP fill the room, Sam Eastgate's LA Priest sits back and lets the room come to him. You’ll have heard ‘What Moves’ by now; sounding like 2020’s answer to the Hot Butter ’79 classic ‘Popcorn’, its bubbling, melted pop is perfect for these days spent indoors – and the new single ‘Beginning’ is equally brilliant. It’s perfect Glastonbury vibes, like sitting round the Stone Circle with your mates, waiting for sunrise. Taken from ‘Gene’ - LA Priest’s first record in five years - we’ll have to wait a bit longer for it to drop next month, but it’s going to be something special. Get those Mercury forms in.