If actions speak louder than words, then London newcomers Long Distance Runner are screaming from the rooftops.
Featuring members of Mandrake Handshake and Dead Dad’s Club, the quartet are the latest in a select line of london rock bands – wing! and Butch Kassidy among them – eschewing vocals entirely and favouring instead the epic, elemental capabilities of robust instrumental exploration.
Less of a ‘song’ per se, and more a fleeting capture of a six-and-half-minute moment in time, semi-improvised debut single ‘Zero’ might always take a slightly different form when played live, but the version committed to tape here by producer Tom Kellett (of Moreish Idols and Pearl2) is exquisitely thunderous. Guitar notes that rumble like the echoes of distant thunder, punctuate a writhing, rollicking, relentless drum beat. The whole winding composition morphs seamlessly, from punkish fury to the tenderest of post-hardcore excursions, like a stylistic meet-up of Fontaines’ ‘Televised Mind’ and Explosions in The Sky.
And the band name is more than a learned Alan Sillitoe reference too. Long Distance Runner are covering the miles, riding with the victories, the defeats, the glories and the humilities, in one raging, passionate citadel of musical curiosity.
Photo by Jude Jansen
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