All These Countless Nights (Reworked)

James Veck-Gilodi is contemplating the differences between All These Countless Nights, the imminent new album from Deaf Havana, and the previous records by this most-treasured of UK rock bands.

There’s much to consider. There’s the expansion of the band’s sound, of course, which sees them create the most eclectic, envelope-pushing album of their 11-year career. And there’s the renewed confidence in his own creative ability that saw Veck-Gilodi reject his former, rigorously self-imposed songwriting rules in favour of a freewheeling, anything-goes approach.
But the most crucial difference concerns James himself. Because, if previous Deaf Havana albums have been preoccupied with the person he used to be, All These Countless Nights is all about who he actually is. And the end result is Deaf Havana’s most brutally honest and bruisingly emotional album yet.

So, while 2011’s Fools And Worthless Liars found Veck-Gilodi struggling with his frontman role and “feeling weird” and 2013’s Old Souls saw him “spent 99% of my time under the influence of something, usually booze”, the recording process for All These Countless Nights was “the least hazy, most positive recording experience we’ve ever had”.
As well as Veck-Gilodi’s new-found self-assurance, the entire band — multi-instrumentalist Max Britton, bassist Lee Wilson, drummer Tom Ogden and Veck-Gilodi’s guitarist brother, Matthew – embrace the breath-taking possibilities opening up before them, with every song expanded and enhanced from the original demos to the finished versions.

The brilliant album that emerged from these energised, focused sessions, seems all the remarkable for the fact that, at one point not so long ago, it looked like the band that made it might cease to exist.
Old Souls had successfully catapulted Deaf Havana into the UK rock big league, crashing into the Top 10 of the Albums Chart and seeing the band sell out ever-bigger venues but, behind the scenes, financial problems and a lack of internal communication almost broke them. “I was very close to quitting,” says Veck-Gilodi,

Thankfully he didn’t and what a result. Lead single Sing takes all of Deaf Havana’s traditional qualities – soaring melodies, witty lyrics, an uncanny ability to make an emotional connection with rock’s heartland audience – and bolts on an absolute monster of a riff to create the heaviest Deaf Havana song ever. Beautiful acoustic ballad Happiness, meanwhile, is “the saddest and most honest” song Veck-Gilodi’s ever written. Seething alt-rocker Trigger examines a volatile previous relationship with forensic candour; the contemplative Seattle is a love song to faraway England, and the brooding L.O.V.E infuses one lust-fuelled on-the-road encounter with guilt rather than bravado.

It’s an album, in short, that holds nothing back, emotionally or musically. Ladies & gentlemen, your attention please. The real Deaf Havana just stood up to be counted.