Peterborough band’s debut album and tour details released

FES – Pollyanna Holland-Wing (vocals/guitar), Tom Holland-Wing (drums) and Matt West (bass) – have already released a video for lead single ‘Clarinet’ which came out last month.

Commenting on the track, guitarist Pollyanna – who with Tom are working music teachers locallly (Matt now lives in Leeds) – says: “Clarinet’ is all about the loss of your inner child, and the simplicity of childhood. It’s about the choices made and begs the question, ‘if things were different, would it be better?’. The question I asked myself whilst writing this song was, ‘what would my younger self think of present-me?”

The band have played a good few shows locally in places such as The Met Lounge and Mama Liz’s in Stamford, and also announced a run of May 2022 UK and European tour dates supporting Los Angeles duo Standards, as well as appearances at Portals Festival, Bad Pond Festival and ArcTanGent Festival 2022.

Having formed in late 2016, the band quickly established a keen underground fanbase for themselves touring the UK with their high-energy stage show, slick tempo changes, and undeniable math-pop melodies.

Previously known as Flat Earth Society, the band made the decision to change their name to FES after being contacted one too many times by actual Flat Earthers – a subculture of conspiracy theorists who believe that the world is in fact flat, rather than spherical. Yes, these people really do walk amongst us.

Taking inspiration from a multitude of various math-rock bands and pop artists including Fish Tank, Signals, St Vincent, Paramore and Biffy Clyro, their songs are leant additional depth by their deftly-penned lyrical observations on themes of identity, mental health, nostalgia and grief.

Finishing up last year on a UK tour with Last Hyena and InTechnicolour, FES have so far released two four-track EPs including You Do You (2017) and Lunar (2018) along with a split EP with Brighton math-rockers Exploder called Sleep Less in 2017.

“Originally the album started off as an EP to be released in 2020/21,” explains Pollyanna of the forthcoming record, “but as covid hit we were forced to put that on hold. With so much time on our hands and gigging life on pause we decided to go BIG for our next release. We wrote new songs and tweaked the ones we had. The main themes of the album consist of dealing with death for the first time, self-reflection and mental health.”

Further album details will be revealed over the coming months. Debut album With Regards From Home will be released on April 29 via Small Pond Records.