Dutch Uncles, Manchester’s much-revered electro art rock quartet, return with their long-awaited sixth album ‘True Entertainment’.
Taking inspiration from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Prince, Steely Dan, Ennio Morricone, The Blue Nile, Kate Bush and Roxy Music, "’True Entertainment’ behaves like it knows it's been away for some time, and doesn’t apologise for that," jokes vocalist Duncan Wallis. "Ultimately, it's written with the mindset that on our sixth album, we’re only in competition with ourselves when it comes to finding satisfaction in our craft."
True to this mantra, ‘True Entertainment’ bears some of the most delightfully fun Dutch Uncles music to date; paired with some of their most existential and introspective lyrics. The album sees lyricist Duncan Wallis pose questions like: What is success? Am I enough? How can I better? (and can I even afford to be better?)
The album’s centrepiece is “I’m Not Your Dad”, detailing Wallis’ experiences after his parents separated: “split Christmases and New Years Eve’s with people you no longer trust, having to get used to new pieces of furniture, unworn bedrooms, all the while having to accept being mistrusted just for being a kid”.
“It's our musical imagination of an Ennio Morricone progressive punk (pronk) space opera,” Robin Richards adds. “Tubular bells and wiry guitars synonymous with the sound of spaghetti westerns, but with futuristic synths.”
Another track, ‘Poppin’’, primarily composed by Peter Broadhead, was inspired by the Brian Eno-produced Talking Heads albums and is a minimal take on the age old anxieties, dread and fear we all experience at certain times: “bumping into old faces hungover (or worse, not hungover), taking too long to answer the question ‘you alright?’, forgetting everyone’s name and constantly assessing if old faces were present at any moments of particular cringe in your past.”
While Richards remains Dutch Uncles’ principle composer, the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 prompted other members to contribute musical ideas: the result being their most collaborative album to date. This is evidenced further by Henry Broadhead and Neil Wright (live synth player and live guitarist, respectively) stepping up to production duties alongside the band themselves. Henry Broadhead also mixed the album with Andrew Proudfoot, and it was mastered by Matt Colton (Pet Shop Boys, Christine And The Queens).
‘True Entertainment’ is the long-awaited follow up to Big Balloon (2017), an album which enjoyed widespread acclaim. Listen to Dutch Uncle’s all-new ‘True Entertainment’ HERE.