North For The Winter

Just discovered that remote blogging is now possible via these amazing new internet phones. Wow! Will keep you all posted marginally faster than before all thanks to HTC’s app store! Glorious!

Much love.
Jim - NFTW

And sadly the band is in the market for a new singer again. This time, hopefully someone that will stick for a while.

If you, or anyone else you know are interested, please give us a heads up. We don’t have a gender preference, so long as you can sing to a high level and command a stage we’d be very happy. We can play the songs in different keys should they not suit your range. There’ll very likely be more new ones to come as well (that can be written for your range), song-writing influence is a plenty after the last 9 months!

Other possible plus points:
If you can sing and play guitar/keys/something, that’d be wicked as we were considering expanding our numbers, but its not essential.

In the meantime we’re putting Andy on lead vocals to scream our way into the charts.

Welcome to twenty-ten chaps! Everything seems to be going swimmingly our end; we’re all happy and the new music is sounding great. We’re planning on releasing the new EP on ITunes (check out our sample track on the music page or on our newly updated myspace) in the coming month.

We’re also due to play a couple of gigs in the next few months, starting at Rosie Malone’s (the Kasbah’s sister venue in Coventry City Centre) on Saturday the 23rd of Jan. And in addition to that, we’re looking forward to this year’s Warwick University Battle of the Bands competition in February - we’ll get to play in the newly built Copper Rooms, yay!

In preparation for both of these events, Chris got over excited and bought a rather expensive new guitar to complement his set of other rather expensive guitars - all of which he intends to smash up and throw at unsuspecting victims during one of the mental sections of live renditions of our new material… you better watch him like a vulture. Das ist gud, ja!? We think so.

Yum. Fender Jaguar taste nice….

Well good day to you chaps!

We very much hope that your christmas break is going as well as ours. We’re currently down on the sunny, sunny land of Wight recording our latest EP with our new singer, Hannah. And very good it is. Well, at least we think so..

Here’s a sample of track 1:
Fraiser Vs Predator

It’s certainly a lovely place down here. Being right on the coast (we can even see the sea, how wonderful!) with plenty of pubs in close proximity makes us very, very happy people. For the last few days Hannah has been locked in a closet, Chris has had his fill of photo opportunities and I’ve been slowly drifting into insanity (it’s probably the air down here?), however, things are definitely progressing. Itunes here we come.

Our super space shuttle fuel powered neo-dynamic new 4 track EP, “Back Off Man, I’m A Scientist” will likely contain the following new tunes:

“Fraiser Vs Predator”
“Bored Of The Dead”
“If Die Hard Taught Us Anything…”
“The Sum Of All Wrong”

More blogging to follow as the week continues… Let us know what you think.

Jim - North For The Winter

So it would seem that we have inadvertently stumbled into some sort of BBC local radio competition! Apparently we’ve made it through the initial selection process and will have our latest track, “She Self Medicates”, reviewed by the presenters of BBC Berkshire’s “The Session Introducing” - a show designed to shine light on local unsigned acts, such as ourselves! Excellent!

So, if you’re near a PC (or radio for that matter) on Sunday evening tune in to BBC radio Berkshire at 7PM and listen to a local radio ‘expert’ tear apart our hard work in the review section! We’re looking forward to it!

In other news, we have a few gigs lined up this summer so catch us at one of the following venues, or don’t… either way we’ll still love you!

Friday 24th July – Plug n’ play, Reading
Thursday 30th July – The Hobgoblin, Staines
Saturday 22nd August – Reading Fringe Festival (Face Bar all-dayer)

Also, we’re now listed and have been played a large number of times on StudyVoxFM, a global radio station designed and run by students. Visit/listen here: http://www.studyvoxfm.com/

BBC Introducing…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/ (listen live here on Sunday 7PM)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/berkshire/content/articles/2007/10/03/demo_panel_new_feature.shtml (here’s the other 2 demos being reviewed!)

The ’stoner rock’ webzine, NineHertz, have recently reviewed our new album. If you haven’t had a listen yourself yet, here’s what ‘Rob Himself’ thought:

Incredibly, despite playing maybe ten or twenty gigs in their 5 year + existence, Hampshire post-hardcore types North For The Winter have released FOUR (count ‘em) full-length albums. What they lack in live experience (with the exception of bassist Andy, formerly of Mfkzt and largely studio-bound stoners Cicadas), they make up for in prolific songwriting and you have to admire their tenacity.

‘Perfect Automation’ is an 11-track slice of succinct, melodic indie, displaying all their tricks in one handy, highly listenable package.

Benefiting from the recent addition of a teenaged, female vocalist, the songs are well layered and dynamic - album highlight ‘She Self Medicates’ is built nicely round an bizarrely Cranberries-esque vocal line. Sharing singing duties with guitarist Chris, the two-part harmonies tend to waver at times, but the solid, busy drumming and sturdy basswork keep things moving.

Four albums in (it makes less sense the more you say it), the band bare their influences a little too much given their longevity, with Biffy Clyro being the most obvious and prominent. That said, the likes of ‘You’re Ruin’ call to mind parts of the Deep Elm roster and elsewhere there’s an honesty to Chris’ songwriting that outshines any lack of originality. There’s no pretension or desperate image maintenance here.

‘Perfect Automation’ is the sound of a band struggling against a tide of apathy, but if honestly tuneful, ambitious indie-rock is your bag, you’ll be rooting for them on first listen.

The album is available to download for free at www.northforthewinter.com

Click below to view the article on their website:
NFTW - Perfect Automation Album Review @ NineHertz.co.uk

Good day to you!

We at NFTW HQ are finally pleased to announce the release of the band’s 4th album to date, entitled: Perfect Automation. This production is available FOR FREE in both CD and Digital Download format.

To grab a free CD, come to any of our upcoming gigs we’ll be handing them out, or track down and shout at one of us until we surrender a copy to you. If you’re an interwebz fan, visit the Media section of the website to download the album zip.

Enjoy, and if you like it, please drop us a line!

Jim - NFTW

It’s rocking along. We’re nearly there with the album, here’s some artwork!

Okay, so I’ve now run out of “other” things to do besides mastering this thing. Damn. Next post I make will contain a link to the finished product…

…unless I can find more things to do…*thinks*

Jim - NFTW
x

As promised, I’ve uploaded a couple of the tracks from the new album:

She Self Medicates, Talking Until Dawn, One Year Longer, Always.
You can listen to them (not in great quality) here: www.northforthewinter.com/audio.php

If you happen to own any previous NFTW albums may recognize the odd song - we didn’t want to give too much away at this point! We’ll be releasing the entire album in the next week or so…

Jim - NFTW

Afternoon folks! Just thought we’d give you a little update..

Starting tomorrow, NFTW are back in the studio for 1-2 weeks to re-record our EP, entitled ”This Rusting Promise”, and to turn it into a full-fledged, 11 track album. The name is still provisional and so is the track list but you can expect the latest versions of ”One More Time, Always One More Time”, ”She Self-Medicates” and ”For The Win” to make an appearance! In the meantime, enjoy the old EP while it’s there!