The Stranglers, who are still the UK’s most dangerously eccentric band, release their eagerly awaited new album, ‘Giants’ on 5th March 2012. The record coincides with an extensive European tour, kicking off with eighteen dates in the UK commencing 1st March.
The Stranglers are Jet Black (drums), JJ Burnel (bass and lead vocals), Dave Greenfield (keyboards) and Baz Warne (guitar and lead vocals). Giants features JJ Burnel and Baz Warne on shared vocal duties and boasts those trademark Stranglers bass lines and keyboard runs as well as a waltz (!) and the first instrumental the band have recorded since 1980. The full track listing runs: Another Camden Afternoon, Freedom Is Insane, Giants, Lowlands, Boom Boom, My Fickle Resolve, Time Was Once On My Side, Mercury Rising, Adios, 15 Steps.
In recent years the Stranglers have appeared at Glastonbury, T in the Park, V Festivals, Hyde Park and Isle of Wight in the UK as well as their counterparts across Europe. The band’s UK tour details are as follows:
1 March Leeds O2 Academy
2 March Dunfermline Alhambra
3 March Glasgow O2 Academy
5 March Liverpool O2 Academy
6 March Nottingham Rock City
8 March Cambridge Corn Exchange
9 March London Roundhouse
10 March Birmingham O2 Academy
12 March Oxford O2 Academy
13 March Portsmouth Pyramids Centre
15 March Lincoln Engine Shed
16 March Brighton Dome
17 March Bristol O2 Academy
19 March Leamington Spa Assembly
20 March Guildford G-Live
22 March Newcastle O2 Academy
23 March Sheffield O2 Academy
24 March Manchester O2 Academy
In 1977 the Stranglers released their extraordinary debut album, Rattus Norvegicus and firmly established themselves as the world’s first progressive punk outlaws. Seminal long players like No More Heroes and Black and White followed before the band released probably the finest live album of that era, Live (X Cert). Later that year the Stranglers surprised and surpassed all expectations by releasing the gentler more evocative album The Raven and it is that album’s legacy that’s left its mark on latter-day Stranglers recordings. During their career the Stranglers have garnered a total of 24 Top 40 singles over four decades as well as eighteen Top 40 album., Hits include Peaches, No More Heroes, 5 Minutes, Duchess, Something Better Change, Always The Sun, Golden Brown, Strange Little Girl and Skin Deep amongst others. After re-signing to EMI in 2004, the Stranglers have released two studio albums, Norfolk Coast and Suite XVI, both records confirming that the band have re-entered some kind of halcyon era. The albums were hailed as the best the band have recorded since the 1980s and yielded further hit singles Big Thing Coming and Spectre of Love.
