The sounds behind 'European Soul'From the very beginning *Citizens!* have always sought to make pop songs: big songs, ambitious songs, but always pop songs.
New album 'European Soul' finds the band introducing a host of new influences, fresh approaches.
Out on April 13th, production comes from George Reid with the band stretching their wings still further.
Singer Tom Burke comments: "You should never be resigned, always push forward. That's European Soul".
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*Otis Redding - 'That's How Strong My Love Is'*The power of Otis's voice is mesmerising. And the message reinforces the delivery. When I have to say my favourite soul singer Otis is always my man. Sam Cooke is sweet and Marvin Gaye is complex and tender, but Otis grabs you and shakes you and kisses you and hugs you and knocks you on the floor, drinks your beer and steals your girl away... but you're okay with it because he's so damn good!
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*Womack and Womack - 'Teardrops'*That moment where classic song writing started to embrace all this weird new technology was a big inspiration for us. Luther Vandross did it well, but for heartbreaking emotion, club groove, and the best 80s video, you can't beat Teardrops. The lyrics are perfect too and capture a moment everyone can recognise - even if most clubs, sadly, don't have a powder room any more.
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*Bruno Mars - 'Locked Out Of Heaven'*What can you say about Bruno. If you don't love him that's your fault not his. I remember we all watched his half time show at the super bowl and thought: "when we do the super bowl, this is the standard we'll need to live up to". Now every night we try and channel a bit of Bruno into our set. It's still MJ and Freddie mainly, but we're letting Bruno in too.
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*The Bee Gees - 'Nights On Broadway'*The Bee Gees are an influence on us in the way that they mix these grooves that you feel you could dance to all night, with absolutely brilliant songs. The melodies are as strong as the groove and vice versa. You want to sing at the top of your lungs, but you want to dance too. That's something we really wanted to achieve with the new album. We also want to bring back in tight one piece flared white suits, but we'll settle for the tunes
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*Frank Ocean - 'Thinking About You'*What can you say about Frank that hasn't been already said. But we just keep going back to the tunes. You can put on 'channel Orange' or 'Nostalgia/Ultra' and just kick back and do nothing. They're stone cold classics. And he just covered Aaliyah which makes him basically untouchable in our world.
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*Darkside - 'Golden Arrow'*Despite all these big choruses and nagging rhythms, we still wanted to find a new path for ourselves to find a way to say something about now using all these different influences. Hence the title 'European Soul'. The Darkside album did that for us. It was a whole world of things you could just get deep into and explore, and it just sounded epic. We all have a massive crush on Mr. Jaar, I hope he's okay with that.
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'European Soul' will be released on April 13th.
Catch Citizens! at the following UK show:
*April*
16 *London* XOYO
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