Most of the discourse around Sad Lovers & Giants hereabouts has focused on their earliest works and specifically the labyrinthine mess of singles, EPs, albums, and compilations that make finding and owning the material that cemented them as one of the best overlooked bands of early post-punk and new wave so frustrating. In doing so, however, it neglected the fact that the band has carried on making and releasing new music with a nominal number of hiatuses and lineup shuffles. Frontman Garçe Allard and drummer Nigel Pollard have been the constants throughout their almost fifty-year run and the rest of the band also having put in tenures measured in decades.

They released their eighth studio album and first in eight years, The Weight Of Forgotten Dreams, this past Summer and while it’s unsurprisingly slower than their early works – no one here is a young man anymore – they successfully sell it as stately. Allard’s vocals are still remarkably strong and Tony McGuinness’s guitarwork keeps the same clean and chorused tonal blueprint he inherited from original guitarist Simon Blanchard (aka Tristan Garel-Funk).

Post-punk.com just posted a comprehensive interview with the band about their origins, making the new record, and what comes next – specifically a documentary film about the band due imminently along with a double-album soundtrack.

While the new album just came out, the opener and lead single was released fully six years ago at the peak of the early days of COVID, along with a video that was made through the isolation protocols of the time. It’s quite eerie, as befit the moment, and was – for me – a little triggering. I remember this split-screen life all too well.

Thankfully, we are back to real life and so we have this live version recorded this past June in Brixton, London.