RELEASED THIS FRIDAY OCT 1ST on Bandcamp!
Mercenary records are proud to announce Brendan Tallon’s 4th solo single ‘Love In These Times’.
‘Love in these Times’ is the fourth single and title song from Brendan Tallon’s acclaimed debut solo album. Remixed for radio release by Frank McGing and mastered by the legendary Terry Manning, who as part of the Stax team engineered and produced the likes of Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Al Green, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Cocker, Booker T and the MG’s…and personal favourites Big Star, to name drop a few.
The songs’ theme encapsulates the albums central preoccupations, as Tallon explains ’When things are going great it’s easy to talk about universal values, of justice and empathy, of fairness and compassion for all but it’s when things are going really badly that these values, and our commitment to them, actually get tested. ‘Love in these times’ is an appeal to bring these values closer in times of crisis and stress rather than to push them away or make excuses for why they are suddenly impractical.’ Written in the ‘austerity years’ following the epic banking crisis that brought the Celtic Tiger to such a spectacular and abrupt end, friends of Tallon urged him to put the song out while it was still pertinent but as he continues, ‘I thought there was no hurry. There would always be an apt time to release a song with that kind of theme as unfortunately we seem to be lurching from crisis to crisis. I couldn’t have guessed that a pandemic would come along and bring the song into even more relevance and become so personal for me as a musician in lockdown.’
Accompanied by 4-part Doo-Wop harmonies, swaggering saxophones and shuffling along to a lazy, summery, glammed up groove, ‘Love in these Times’, like previous singles ‘Old Man Superman’ and “American strings’ packages some big ideas in familiar but surprising genre blending settings.
’If there’s love in these times we could use some now…’
To coincide with the single release and fronting a new 7-piece band, Tallon will co-headline a Vicar Street show on Thurs 14th Oct with the brilliant Cat Dowling. Tickets for that show are available now via Ticketmaster.
- RTE album of the week (‘Songs that H-I-T written all over them’ John Creedon)
- Newstalk Tom Dunnes album of the week (‘by a country mile’)
- Irish Independent album of the week
- Marty Whelan’s recommended album of the week, Lyric FM
- RTE Entertainment 4 Stars (‘a master melody maker and peerless songwriter’)
- Hot Press 8/10
- Arena Arts Show 4 1/2 Stars (‘beautifully crafted music’)
Brendan Tallon’s debut solo album ‘Love in these times’ is out now!
Brendan Tallon 