Following her 2023 album Rapture, Bristol’s favorite underground queen Emily Breeze launched today her new EP called Second Rodeo.
We got a taste last week (5 april) with her single ‘1997’ but we came back for more. In the company of Rob Norbury, Helen Stanley, Andy Sutor and George Caveney, Emily mixes a little Patti Smith, a little LCD Soundsystem, and a lot of nostalgia.
Emily loves a good storyteller and you can see the evolution in her writing and style. Her songs are filled with memories; maybe the best example is 1997, the first song on the album:
Threw up Peach 2020
Bought cassette tapes and T shirts from HMV
Explicit lyrics, parental advisory
Yeah, we were raging against the machine
We did it with our pocket money
In a haze of hormones and Lynx Africa
Rob plays a crucial role as the guitar answers back throughout the song, enriching the atmosphere. As usual, there’s hope and disappointment, but there’s also acceptance.
‘1997’ is followed by the pop song ‘The Beatniks’ which Breeze described as a call « to embrace your inner slacker and find some strange state of ecstasy wherever you can in an increasingly weird world ». Don’t we need a little bit of that ?
Next up is ‘We were lovers’, a blend of the eighties with the most romantic definition of love I’ve heard in a while : « falling in love with you is like waking up to find out that work has been abolished ».
To close the EP, Emily Breeze chooses to take on a challenge. She graces us with a wonderful cover of Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’. As she said « I have loved this song since I used to hear it in my parents car as a child in the 80s…I was drawn in by the adult mystery and American symbolism and totally fucking brilliant song writing and now I’m a grown up and it is a total joy to deliver onstage».
And she delivers it in a dark and heartfelt fashion that shows that the best way to do a cover, is to make it your own.
After 20 years in the scene, Emily has found her tribe. In a world that strives to keep us always productive and busy, Second Rodeo gives us the power to imagine a different way to be.
You can see the band perform
31 July at The Forum, Tunbridge Wells
1 August at The Boileroom, Guildford
2 August at Valley Fest, Bristol
And you follow them on instagram | facebook | spotify | youtube | bandcamp | mailing list