Photo: Laura MacLennan

Belfast garage rockers Junk Drawer return with the confessional “Tears in Costa”, announce new EP

Belfast quartet Junk Drawer will follow up 2020’s excellent debut album Ready For The House with a new EP called The Dust Has Come To Stay, arriving on March 11 through Art For Blind. They’ve shared the opening track, “Tears in Costa”, with vocalist Stevie Lennox saying:

“The title stems from a time when I found myself with tears streaming down my face due to a deadly concoction of myself (I get the odd extreme brain reaction from epilepsy) and the over-caffeination native to chain cafe, Costa (where our Rory has completely coincidentally just started working). The general gist of the song comes from the realisation that at any point, we can be flung back to ground zero with nothing but our experience behind us. And that’s tough, but it’s something that needs to be accepted, otherwise, you risk getting pulled down with that reset.”

Junk Drawer have always put their emotions on display in their songs, but “Tears in Costa” is probably their most vulnerable yet. Lennox sings of his hopes and failures in a sweet, sing-song manner, which the band match with their most melodious and catchy work to date. This seems to push Lennox to test out his vocals too, adding some crooner-like style to his admissions (“sometimes I can be found behaving in an erratic fashion”), before belting out the chorus. Despite the tearful scenes and open heartedness on display, “Tears in Costa” is sheer fun.

That humour is carried into and expanded upon in the video, which you can watch below.

Junk Drawer’s The Dust Has Come To Stay will be out on March 11 through Art For Blind. Follow the band on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.