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Beginning life as a straightforward pop-punk outfit, as bassist and co-vocalist Tom Farr notes, Manchester’s The Summer War have expanded into much more over time. “We wouldn’t say we really fit into that genre as a band anymore,” he exclaims, before listing the multitude of influences that have led to their new EP, ‘Cult Of You’. “I’m really into my more acoustic/Americana stuff at the moment, Dave was always sending me more chilled out tracks or more indie rock stuff, and Jack just listens to absolutely everything to expand his drumming influences.”

Throughout these five tracks pop-punk is a distant memory, an old friend who has clearly left his mark but moved on to pastures new. ‘Cult Of You’ is an emotional thunderstorm, with expansive guitar work and an impassioned grit. Any superficial notions that come with the band’s early associations are non-existent as the EP unfolds.

“I think it’s just a natural progression for us as a band,” guitarist and vocalist David Ciaramella expands. “It still has elements of our older stuff, but it’s more thought out and we pushed ourselves to not just jump at the first idea we came up with.”

“We kind of touched on it a bit with our last EP but didn’t fully realise or expand on certain ideas,” Tom interjects, “but this is the sound of us putting all our ideas down in one place, and just exploring every option available to us.”

The Summer War have evidently been developing their sound in the studio, a space where Tom feels most comfortable. “I sometimes actually prefer recording to touring,” he admits, “because you get to see this idea that you’ve had in a practice room come to life and fit together, so it’s really satisfying in that regard. I think my favourite part of any recording session is when we finish tracking a certain instrument and it starts to sound like a real song. There’s always a moment for each song when Dave and I will look at each other and grin because it sounds a thousand times better than we thought it would in our heads.”

“Just being able to get into the studio and set everything up, and you piece together a song and run with all these new ideas you didn’t have before you went it, it’s really cool to see a song grow in that way,” David concludes.

Hear the fruits of their labour exclusively below:

‘Cult Of You’ will be available from the 12th April. It is available to pre-order now via BandCamp.

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