Burning Ferns

Due to overwhelming demand, Country Mile are delighted to announce the vinyl reissue of Burning Ferns’ World Of The Wars on Good Friday, March 29th 2024. A year on from its CD release on Good Friday, 7th April 2023, its 2024 counterpart, just got that little bit gooder.

Mixed and remastered for this release, by honorary Fern, Charlie Francis (REM/High Llamas/Robyn Hitchcock), the accompanying artwork has been provided by Newport’s greatest cult hero and label-mate, Jon Langford.

But what of the record itself? Five years on from their acclaimed second album, Public Mono, Burning Ferns returned in April 2023 and my oh my, how things had changed. “World Of The Wars” is the sound of a band grappling with the world going to hell, and making sense of it through the medium of pristine guitar pop . Initially recorded remotely, in the face of Covid lockdown and completed at their Le Mons studio, Newport in 2021/22, it is an album of relentless musicality and guile. Songwriter, Tony Gray displaying an unerring quality control to deliver 12 startling songs, that push on from the power pop of previous releases, to more widescreen musical aspirations.

Accompanied by established Ferns, Nathan Abraham (lead guitar/vocal), Brychan Todd (bass/keyboards) and Dave Corten (rhythm guitar/vocal), the album sees a personnel change on drums. The band said hello to Newport’s assimilated New Yorker, Erik Stams (Darling Buds, Jon Langford & The Men of Gwent) whilst waving goodbye to Slim Short after two albums of loyal service. The songs are a wall to wall technicolour delight, embracing a range of styles including glam rock, pure pop and 70s psychedelia. It is a lyrical masterclass too; wrestling with a wide range of themes from the mundane to the existential. Covid rears its ugly head on Danger In The Western Hemisphere, and Tell Me Something I Don’t Know, while there is a restlessness too (Frustration/’Til Tomorrow).

Add to that a simple love song, a song about the Me Too movement seen through the prism of primates and a polemic on disaster capitalism, and you have the makings of an album for our times. In the end it is enough to bring you tears, as the album ends with guitar-pop masterclass, The Town Crier, also released as a 7” AA side single alongside Nothing To Hide. The single sold out within a week of its release and the album was longlisted for the Welsh Music Prize.

Praise for World Of The Wars:

“Designed to keep your ears intrigued” - Record Collector, April 2023

“I’m astounded by it. It’s just one great song after another” - Simon Wright, BBC Radio Wales Arts Show

“A state of the western world address via the medium of clever guitar pop. Wales’…answer to Steely Dan” - Shindig Magazine, August 2023

“It manages to meld Badfinger, XTC, The Beatles, Emit Rhodes, Elvis Costello and Todd Rundgren - utterly fantastic” - Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales

“A dozen songs where the verse is as catchy as the chorus, where chunky riffs abound and where the singer has something to say” - Kevin McGrath