Eight Fourteen Monday

Thanks again to Vive Le Rock magazine for another video premiere! This time it's the turn of Eight Fourteen Monday to get a visual treatment. Click the image to go to the premiere.

"Manc psych explorers THE SPEED OF SOUND have unveiled another new video from their mammoth Cornucopia project.

Three albums in one, 'Eight Fourteen Monday' is taken from the Minerva album, the other two discs in the set being Victory and Bounty.

"Light and airy the music contrasts with the imagery of a dark and gloomy early Monday Manchester morning commute," says the band's John Armstrong. "The inevitable announcements of delays and cancelations say 'We would like to apologise', rather than ‘We apologise'; a subtle difference with a totally different meaning. Everyone is wrapped in their own thoughts and staring at their phones, retreating internally to avoid thinking about the discomfort of the journey. Eighty years ago the bomb fell above Hiroshima at eight fourteen on a Monday."

There are four different artworks for the single:

Its here - A Cornucopia: Minerva

We do. We like albums. Especially when they are structured as a whole, becoming far more than a bunch of songs. The ability albums have of developing a dynamic trajectory and then resolve the overall sonic shapeshifting adventure over the course of 40+minutes is fascinating. So much so, that we did it three times in this release. A Cornucopia is physically a set of three related but separate albums, however digitally (including streaming) it is having a staggered release with only Minerva hitting the streaming platforms now, meaning there are two additional exclusively physical albums. The three - Minerva, Victory and Bounty - function independently, but despite the variation within them were written to feel unified. Minerva and Victory are gapless, final chords and first chords complement (or occasionally contrast) each other. As with a well designed live set the tempo and key variations are sculpted to create an experience. Its not background music, music should be more than an accompaniment to doing something else. Music itself is the main event. So, yes: We like albums. We made these for people that like albums.

So; for streaming look wherever you would normally look and you'll find it. For the CD or LP click the image. Or if you don't like paying postage you can order the CD from any record shop.

Trickledown video Premiere

Thanks to The Spill Magazine in Canada for their Premiere of the video for Trickledown and their ace accompanying review:

"Music is the stuff of magic – or is it sonic alchemy? Whatever you may call it, today we have the pleasure of introducing “Trickledown”, the latest audio-visual offering from Manchester powerpop / indie rockers The Speed Of Sound, a quintet made up of father and son John Armstrong (guitars and vocals) and Henry Armstrong (keyboards), Ann-Marie Crowley (vocals and guitar), Kevin Roache (bass guitar) and John Broadhurst (drums).

The new single comes on the trail of “The Great Acceleration” and the album’s lead track “West Wind”. the band reveals the final single from their new album A Cornucopia: Minerva, released by American cult label Big Stir Records. With a measured pace, a sense of spaciousness and Crowley’s unique vocals, we arrive at a sound recalling a more chilled-out Jefferson Airplane. Taking into consideration all three singles previewed to date, it’s clear that the sonic kaleidoscope presented on The Speed of Sound’s new album is worth the wait – a musical compass in a direction we should all explore.

Full of ambition, energy, and eccentric melodic brilliance, this is the first record of the three-album set A Cornucopia: Minerva, Victory, Bounty from these future-retro-modernist garage-psych stalwarts. While these albums will see digital editions over the next year, the Vinyl and CD versions are 3-disc sets carrying the umbrella title A Cornucopia. Released as deluxe editions, each set includes two full-length bonus albums Victory and Bounty. But it all begins with Minerva. 

With A Cornucopia: Minerva coinciding with the band’s 35th anniversary, The Speed Of Sound returns triumphant, defiant and redemptive, following up their 2021 critically acclaimed album Museum Of Tomorrow. Named for the goddess associated with wisdom, the arts and strategic warfare, this album explores themes of resistance to mainstream cultural dominance, championing individual identity and artistic creativity whilst being a vigorous musical celebration of subcultural existence in the face of predominantly bland pop culture.

‘Minerva’ presents 14 fresh and variegated tracks, each one a burst of differently-hued radio friendly sonic technicolor. These new pieces range from the recklessly fast Bo Diddley rhythm successfully merged with a Wagnerian horn section of lead single “West Wind” to the haunting and spacious ballad critiquing Economic Theory that is “Trickledown” to the stripped back mediaeval folk-tinged starkness of “The Harvest” to the stratospheric vastness of “The Great Acceleration”.The album passes seamlessly through the acoustic guitar-driven groove of “SS-100-X”, the spacious iridescence of “Eight Fourteen Monday”, the lively ascendence of “The Party Sniper”, the glowing radioactivity metaphor of “Half Life” to the bright uplifting dementia and identity-loss focused “Mind Palace”. While the bouncing vibe of “Bodysnatchers” reminds us to stay awake and not slip into the drabness of normalcy, the crunching melodic punch of “Clickbait” zings into the typewriter introduction of “Yet Another Tuesday”, onwards to the punkifed rhythm and blues of “So Faux” and the closing acoustic riot of “Question Time”.

With their inbuilt eclectic and genre-defying style, The Speed Of Sound expand from their base-camp foundation of multiple 1960s, punk and new wave influences, encompassing wide dynamic and stylistic variation, crossing borders and pushing boundaries at every opportunity while retaining continuity. The music bursts with experimentation whilst retaining hooks and melodic sensibility, plus the sharp barbed wit, lyrical depth and all-pervading sense of joy that form the irrepressible, uplifting hallmarks of this band.Throughout their 35-year history, The Speed Of Sound have continuously produced music laced with optimism and lyrical bite, tapping the DIY ethos of punk and the restless lust for experimentation of psychedelia. Formed in 1989 with a pre-history dating back to the day Andy Warhol died in 1987, their music has always been idiosyncratic, counter-intuitive and perpetually looking for something new.On May 24, Minerva will be released on CD and vinyl via Big Stir Records. The full A Cornucopia collection is available via Bandcamp."

The Big Takeover review and new album announcement

A stunningly enthusiastic review form NYC's Big Takeover Magazine revelling in the swirling mixture that comprises Minerva, the first disc of A Cornucopia:

"A 3-record set available only in physical form? Man, its like the seventies all over again, But before you run off to check if your purple, crushed velvet, loon pants still fit, let me stop you there. For now, at least, we are faced only with one album, namely Minerva the first third of the deluxe box set to follow (which will be joined by Victory and Bounty - bonus points for those that have made the connection.) The band in question is Manchester's The Speed Of Sound so the music leans towards pop-infused sophistication and punky energy rather than anything proggy or paisley patterned. And if I have suggested the music is anything but a product of here-and-now then I must apologise.

And so it is that across fourteen tracks, The Speed Of Sound works its eclectic magic. 'West Wind' is a Hendrix vocal-drawl leading a punk-blues groove whilst a horn section perform a sonic, shamanistic ritual in the near distance and 'SS-100-X' is Lou Reed gone folk. 'The Harvest' is the sort of thing Nick Cave might have come up with, if he worked as chief troubadour in the court of Henry V, whilst 'Bodysnatchers' tips its hat at Elvis... make that Costello not Presley. And if 'Clickbait' is the sort of sound that punk should have been about had it been less sneering and aloof and taken a leaf out of the Pop Pickers Playbook, then 'So Faux' is just... odd. And I mean that in the very best of ways.

Although digital versions of the three albums that will make up the box set will be available down the line, this is a physical-only release for now. This release coincides with the band's 35th anniversary, but more than that, the songs, based on Minerva at least, are going to be some of the most fun and frantic, optimistic and lyrical, deft and dexterous songs you have heard in a while. Any balanced, respectable and discerning music fan worth their salt will want to add these to their physical music collection. Music fans like you!" 

You can find the piece on The Big Takeover website here    

Thanks from us to Dave Franklin and The Big Takeover

the links are in the weblink above, but also here https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-cornucopia-minerva