Words: Linn Branson
Sheffield garage duo Long Limbs, who made their live debut in April, along with first recorded offering, the inimitably catchy 'Amitriptyline' the month before, are now set to further their head-long rush to grab your ears.
The pair - Tom on drums/backing vocals, and Pete providing vocals/guitars (who describe their sound as "fuzzy scuzzy pop: happy songs from sad people") - have just released last Friday a new single 'Past Tense' via Art Is Hard Records' limited edition Hand Cut vinyl 7-inch series. Despite being just two of them, they manage to fill out the track with a little help.
"We wrote it a few weeks after we wrote 'Amitriptyline', vocalist Pete tells us. 'We were trying to be more ambitious with it, but it's still just guitar and drums, I guess. Both of us sing on it, as well as Joseph Armstrong from Avida Dollars and Ed Crisp from Best Friends, who both added in shouts later. It's got a similar theme to 'Amitriptyline'. Ed and Calum from Delicious Clam [Sheffield label/studio/DIY collective run by Best Friends] are both amazing studio wizards and know their way around microphones!"
'Past Tense', whilst taking on a more sombre tone than 'Amitriptyline', and the repeated lament of “I don’t know what to do/when I’m not with you”, strikes for the jugular with urgent, angular guitar riffs, before a sweet melodic midway breakdown before closing out on singalong harmonies.
Long Limbs met around a year ago and started the band towards the end of last year, when both were both "doing a foundation in fine art before uni and we both had just got dumped", and after playing in various local bands. As for the Long Limbs name? "It actually came from a conversation between me and Harry from Radical Boy saying we were going to start a dance academy for people with long limbs, to stop people looking like Bambi on ice. Also, we are both pretty tall."
Putting some tracks down in the studio, from which 'Amitriptyline' resulted: a buzzy little number about an anti-depressant. "We recorded six tracks in our first recording session over at Delicious Clam," says Pete. "All the tracks we have released so far were from that first session.
'Amitriptyline' is about coping and trying to cope. We released that with
Delicious Clam, which is a great collective that all of our friends' bands are part of. It's a really good community and they're all a big part of the reason I want to write better and better songs, because they are all doing it too - and are really, really good - not in a competitive way, but in a way where if I show them something I want it to be the best it could be."
With more songs in the bag - "we have a load of new songs and stuff we haven't released; in terms of when they will be released and how, I'm really not sure yet" - Long Limbs look like stretching out their frame to a full-length within the next 12 months.
Catch Long Limbs on July 23 at The Washington in Sheffield with The Orielles, and at The Great Gatsby as part of Tramlines festival on July 26.
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