UK group Solstice are set to release their 8th studio album, “Clann,” next Friday, April 4th, 2025 through specialist US label Progrock.com Essentials.
To celebrate the album’s forthcoming release, the band have shared the video for the track “Life.”
You can watch the official video through the YouTube player below:
“As an album title, ‘Clann’ acknowledges the strong sense of family both within the band and among our supporters. As for the song ‘Life’, it’s the recognition of those bonds as they grow and make whatever time we have left together the greatest gift of all” – Andy Glass
Recorded both in a variety of recording studios and by individual band members at home, “Clann” includes a first in the band’s career with the track “Plunk” which features a brass section recorded at the beautiful Grand Chapel Studio in Toddington, Bedfordshire. Glass admits that “there might be a bit of a Big Big Train influence there somewhere!”
“Clann” manages to cover a great deal of musical ground in its nearly 40-minute running time. “Firefly” opens up proceedings and will be familiar to many already through its airing at numerous gigs and its inclusion on both the band’s “Live At The Stables” and “Return To Cropredy” releases. Its pulse-pumping energy, hard-edged yet infectious grooves, whirling bursts of synth and violin and its glorious guitar solo lift the spirit and sweep us into Solstice’s mesmerizing world. “Elsewhere Life” delivers smooth, soulful, modern Pop with an elegant dance-friendly heart and “Plunk” is taut swaggering Funk in 7/8 with brass stabs and a left-field, gritty guitar solo. “Frippa” is built on an urgent, Bluesy Crimson-esque riff in 5 and spotlights organ, violin and even more incendiary guitar. Final track, the 14-minute “Twin Peaks,” in some ways harks back to what Prog polymath and longtime Solstice fan Steven Wilson once described as the band’s “spacey and spacious” early material – it’s gentle, reflective and airy with pastoral, Folky strains, yet builds into a soaring expression of rapturous celebration and spiritual freedom.
Lyrically, the album continues established Solstice themes of love, joy, peace, harmony and acceptance, yet “Clann” admits that not everything in the garden is always rosy. Although longing for some ultimate redemption, both “Plunk” and “Frippa” feature a level of reproach for unidentified liars and cheats with “Plunk” even exercising some wry schadenfreude at the downfall of the song’s antagonist.
Check out the video for the first single “Firefly“
Pre-order “Clann” here:
CD: https://essentials.progrock.com/product/solstice-clann/
Colored Vinyl: https://fairsound.com/product/solstice-clann-rusty-red/
Black Vinyl: https://fairsound.com/product/solstice-clann-black/
Tracklist:
1.Firefly
2.Life
3.Plunk
4.Frippa
5.Twin Peaks
All songs written by Andy Glass
Lineup:
Andy Glass / Guitars, Backing Vocals
Jenny Newman / Violin
Pete Hemsley / Drums
Jess Holland / Lead Vocals
Robin Phillips – Bass
Steven McDaniel / Keyboards
Ebony Buckle / Backing Vocals
Dyane Crutcher / Backing Vocals
Arriving on an exuberant wave of positivity created by previous albums “Sia” (2020) and “Light Up” (2022), both widely acclaimed within the prog community and beyond, “Clann” completes the most recent phase of Solstice’s 40-plus year career. As band founder, composer, and guitarist Andy Glass explains: “[Sia] made me realize the potential and by the time we were working on Light Up the whole band had raised its game. I believed then that a trilogy of albums was what it would take to create our best work and track that journey. Clann is the final album in the Sia Trilogy and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be. Let’s hope the universe likes it too.”
