The Royston Club tackle “just how messy love, sex, memory, and self-worth can be” on new single ‘Cariad’

The Royston Club have shared the latest tease of their second album with the confessional single ‘Cariad’ – listen below.

The Wrexham band are preparing to release ‘Songs For The Spine’ on August 8, the follow-up to their UK Top 20 debut record ‘Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars’ from 2023 – pre-order here.

They have already given fans a taste of the album with the singles ‘The Patch Where Nothing Grows’, ‘Shivers’ and ‘Glued To The Bed’, and now ‘Cariad’ finds the band in reflective mode, with lead songwriter and guitarist Ben Matthias opening up about the bitter pain of a breakup: “I’m not a lucky man / But darling you had me fooled / You carved out a better man / One that loved you through and through,” he sings.

Watch the lyric video here:

“‘Cariad’ was written very soon after a breakup, when I still believed I was in love with the girl and was struggling to come to terms with the relationship ending,” Matthias has said. “I had an almost obsessive attachment to the memory of our time together and those memories seemed inescapable, constantly confronting me with what I had lost.”

“In the first half of the song I surrender the relationship to the past and ‘let the air run out’, letting it die. However the outro betrays this acceptance as I admit, ‘I still wake up with things to tell you’ and ask to feel her touch again, ‘just once again.’ It’s a song that, to me, encapsulates just how messy love, sex, memory, and self-worth can be.”

The Royston Club are also set to hit the road in coming months, including shows at Reading & Leeds, Latitude, Tramlines and TRNSMT and support slots for Bloc Party, The Lathums and Travis.

They will also play a string of record store album release sets in August, followed by a headline tour of the UK and Europe in October and November. Find any remaining tickets here.

The Royston Club will play: 

JULY 
10 – Manchester, Castlefield Bowl (with Bloc Party) 
11 – TRNSMT Festival 
12 – Leeds, Millennium Square (with The Lathums) 
19 – Llandudno, Venue Cymru Arena (with Travis) 
25 – Latitude Festival  
27 – Tramlines  

AUGUST 
2 – Kendal Calling  
5 – Nottingham, Rough Trade (intimate album release event – matinee)  
5 – Nottingham, Rough Trade (intimate album release event – evening )  
6 – Bristol Rough Trade (intimate album release event – matinee)  
6 – Bristol Rough Trade (intimate album release event – evening)  
8 – Liverpool, Jacaranda (intimate album release event – matinee)  
8 – Liverpool, Jacaranda (album release event – evening)  
12 – London, Rough Trade East (intimate album release event – matinee)  
12 – London, Rough Trade East (intimate album release event – evening)  
13 – Brighton, Resident (intimate album release event)  
15 – Hardwick Calling  
22 – Reading Festival  
23 – Leeds Festival  
24 – Rock En Seine  

OCTOBER  
16 – Brighton, Concorde 2 
17 – Bristol, Electric 
18 – Birmingham, O2 Institute  
23 – Manchester, Academy 1  
24 – Newcastle, O2 City Hall  
25 – Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom  
31 – London, O2 Forum Kentish Town  

NOVEMBER  
1 – Sheffield, Octagon 
15 – Paris, Supersonic Records 
18 – Amsterdam, Paradiso Noord (Tolhuistuin) 
19 – Cologne, Blue Shell  
20 – Berlin, Maschinenhaus 
22 – Hamburg, Nochtspeicher 

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