The Hanging Stars

London's The Hanging Stars return with their sixth album, Just A Day due out on Loose on 19 June – a dazzling collection of four-part harmonies, shimmering twelve-string guitars and chiming songs, touching on themes of longing, new beginnings and the fragility of the everyday. A line-up change at the end of 2024 proved galvanising. "We needed to rethink things," says Patrick Ralla. "A new leaner approach – bass, drums, guitars, four-part harmonies. Certainly worked for The Byrds, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub." Central to that new direction was producer Gerard Love — one third of Teenage Fanclub's celebrated songwriting trio — who helped the band strip things back to their essence, joining them for a week of recording and contributing vocals, arrangements, and by all accounts a mean vegan curry. The result is a wonderfully energising record of catchy hooks and renewed vision, engineered and co-produced by longtime collaborator Sean Read. Just A Day is the band's third album recorded at Clashnarrow — owned and run by Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell, and described by the band as "a sort of mixture between Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and the BBC's Repair Shop." Their sound draws on The Byrds, Big Star, The Feelies, Teenage Fanclub and Tom Petty. Or think Lou Reed and the Velvets jamming with Gorkys Zygotic Mynci. The result is an album that feels simultaneously classic and vibrant, their influences worn lightly giving the songs room to breathe.