Avalanche Party were created in 2016 when brothers Joe (bass) and Jordan (guitar, vocals) Bell formed the band, recruiting other musicians from their locality. Jared Thorpe (guitar, saxophone, vocals), Kane Waterfield (drums) and Glen Adkins (synths) complete the line-up. When asked to describe themselves in three words, they have been known to respond “Yorkshire, garage-punk, rock ‘n’ roll”, which is pretty darn accurate – as anyone who has seen them live will know.
The band released their debut album ‘24 Carat Diamond Trephine’ at the end of 2019, and as the world shut down the momentum created ground to a halt. However it didn’t stop the five-piece from the North Yorkshire Moors. Building their own studio in a basement in Middlesborough it gave them space to continue – when restrictions allowed, of course. To say the production of the second album has been eventful would be an understatement. The band were all set to fly to the States to record album No. 2 with legendary producer Dave Catching (at his Rancho De La Luna studio in Joshua Tree, California, no less) when disaster struck – their studio in Middlesborough flooded. Jordan Bell reflects: “That was pretty good timing, really. We went on tour with ….And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead in Europe, and maybe a couple of days before that tour, the studio flooded in some kind of biblical storm.”
Glen Adkins was in the studio at the time: “I was printing merch on my own, and I was sending photographs but obviously it’s in a basement, so the photographs weren’t going through to the band to say, I need help. And then I looked at my phone and none of them had sent through, so I was frantically trying to ring people to bring sandbags. Very stressful. Had amps on chairs, keeping them out the water and piling stuff up on top of each other. At the back door there was a step, about an inch and a half tall, and I could see it creeping towards it. And then it started coming in. And it was just all hands-on deck, trying to get everything up off the floor, turning every plug socket off trying not to electrocute myself.”
The recording session with Dave Catching had been scheduled before COVID restrictions were in place thus kept being pushed back. For Avalanche Party it was a focal point they set their sights on; in the meantime they are a band who obviously have an absolute blast playing live. Their raucous live shows have resulted in a burgeoning loyal fanbase – this is a band once seen, never forgotten. When it finally came around to record ‘Der Traum Über Alles’ (set for release on February 7th via Kartel AMK, the alternative music imprint of Kartel Music Group) in November 2022, Avalanche Party found themselves in the desert of Joshua Tree, with coyotes staring in through the windows keeping a watchful eye. They recorded 14 songs in 10 days, a clear sense of which tracks would be on the album, the support slot with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead providing the perfect opportunity to test out most of the tracks live.
The title Der Traum Über Alles means ‘The Dream Above All’ and when asked why it was in German, the typical tongue-in-cheek response by Jordan was “because it looks better on a tea towel in German! It’s got that kind of hard edge, and I’m kind of verging into stereotypical language territory here, but there’s something about the German language… the word for butterflies, schmetterlinge, there’s some words that are really, really good. I like the sound of it, and it looks good on a tea towel, good on a t-shirt, and that’s what we need to be able to sustain our musical endeavours.”
The latest single is ‘Shake The Slack’ but the album as a whole expresses the energy and exuberance of the band’s live shows. ‘Serious Dance Music’ is one of the highlights, with Jordan expanding: “That was probably one of the early ones we did for the album. I think it was almost an exercise in trying to make a song as simple as possible. There’s only two notes in it, and we were pretty strict. You could only use the notes at very specific times and no other notes. So it started like that based around the rhythm of it, rather than working around a melody or whatever. It’s actually quite a complicated song to play. It’s very deceivingly difficult. There’s quite a few songs on the album that follow that kind of blueprint, like ‘John Coltrane’s ‘Moscow Skyscraper’ or maybe ‘Target’. Based around simplicity, which makes the whole thing more direct, which was sort of the aim for a lot of this music.”
This second album may still be led by an up-tempo exuberance but it does not mean the tracks are carbon copies. ‘Slinky’ has a stomping saxophone and is followed by ‘Chainz’ with what sounds like rattlesnakes in the background. Jordan confirms: “That’s exactly what it is. We had to corner 10 rattlesnakes and put a mic on them. Quite a difficult thing to do!”
Brothers Jordan and Joe have always played music together, and were in a band with drummer Kane Waterfield in their late teens. Whilst gigging they met Glen who was playing in a couple of bands in Darlington, and Jared doing the same in York. Becoming friends it eventually all blended together and Avalanche Party was the result. When it comes to the creative process Jared admits they’ve “written in pretty much every way you can think of whether it’s in the room as a band or individually, or in twos and threes, like for this album. There’s probably less writing together as a five just because it started during COVID and we all just had to do our own things to kick it off. And then when we progressed to having our own studio, we’d be going down there, generally two of us, or, or just me, or, or whatever, for extended periods of time and crafting the stuff, and then taking it to the band and work on it more. We didn’t have much chance for the extended jamming.”
Avalanche Party can already look forward to a packed schedule for the first half of 2025. With the album set for release in February there will be more new music released, in additional they have a week of gigs for Independent Venue Week plus their own headline tour in Spring. As Jordan shares: “We’ve still been gigging over the last couple of years, but not really any extended touring because we haven’t had a release, so we’re excited for all of that, just playing all of it as much as we can all the place.” Cannot wait to see the rattlesnakes do backing on ‘Slinky’.
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‘Der Traum Uber Alles’ will be released on February 7th via AMK – order it HERE. Catch Avalanche Party at the following shows:
Independent Venue Week tour:
29 Jan – Forum, Tunbridge Wells (UK)
30 Jan – Boiler Room, Guildford (UK)
31 Jan – The Black Prince, Northampton (UK)
1 Feb – Heartbreakers, Southampton (UK)
2 Feb – Voodoo Daddys, Norwich (UK)
In-stores:
7 Feb – Jumbo Records, Leeds (UK)
13 Feb – Fighting Cocks, Kingston (UK)
Headline Tour:
6 Mar – The Flying Duck, Glasgow (UK)
7 Mar – Zerox, Newcastle (UK)
8 Mar – The Hare & Hounds 2, Birmingham (UK)
9 Mar – Polar Bear Music Club, Hull (UK)
10 Mar – The Castle Hotel, Manchester (UK)
11 Mar – The Social, London (UK)
12 Mar – The Edge of The Wedge, Porstmouth (UK)
13 Mar – The Horn, St Albans (UK)
14 Mar – Sidney & Matilda, Sheffield (UK)
Words: Julia Mason
Photo Credit: Kyle Howells
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