Manchester's Shaking Chains Share Video for 'Drunk No More'

By: Apr. 20, 2017
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Following sold-out single launch shows in London and Salford, Manchester's Shaking Chains have shared a new music video for 'Drunk No More', taken from their AA-side single, due April 21st via Concrete Recordings. Shaking Chains recently took the internet by storm with their unique, ever-changing film for 'Midnight Oil', inspiring features at the Guardian, BBC, The Creators Project and many more. 'Drunk No More' sees a complete contrast; with a lo-fi look behind the scenes of their single artwork photo shoot, as model Anna Gordon negotiates a pint of the unimaginable. A faulty video camera captures the full pint, in one gruesome, giggly slow motion shot.

Speaking of the video's inspirations, Shaking Chains' drummer and video artist Jack Hardiker says:

"Here nauseous gloop remodels itself on the chin as a slow-motion stalactite of horror, a steady drip of hangover regret that sticks in the frame and the face. With a nod to the stylised title sequences of Jean-Luc Godard, distorted lyrics flash back at you on the screen like slivery figments of chat from the night before. But they're the wrong lyrics, intruding at angles it hurts to tilt your head towards. By the time you've figured it out they're gone, replaced by awkward giggles and incessant, oil-based weirdness. Playing on both song titles, the imagery is indicative of that typically British love of punning, a welcome antithesis to the complex and occasionally lofty ambitions of the 'Midnight Oil' film. Here they are, hungover and falling back on single shot, lizard brain manoeuvres. But this 'hair of the dog' has not felt, or looked, any grimmer. Purgatory, purgatory, purgatory."

Watch 'Drunk No More' here - https://youtu.be/mH96R6pEvy8

Lyrically 'Drunk No More' sees bassist and lyricist Nathan Mcilroy inspired by Carol Batton, Poet Laureate for Mental Health Survivors. "Drunk No More is the thirteenth step of a twelve-step programme - one foot into the abyss. When you get to the bottom but before you're physically and mentally capable of going back to the top of the slide. Homer's Night Out," he adds.

Shaking Chains borrow their name from 'The Masque of Anarchy', a poem written when Shelley was in exile, to portray his disgust with the Peterloo Massacre and the encroaching parochialism of the England in which he fled ('Shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many - they are few'). More Chartists than chart hits, they are a four piece produced in The North long after production halted, currently treading water under the dark streets of London (having played music together, in one form or another, since they were at school).

In an age where groups live and die in the time it takes them to amass a student loan debt, they have stayed together, like a dysfunctional family - chained - through mutual misunderstanding, begrudging love and harrowing shared experience. They've seen the changing musical landscape gorge on it
self and spew out pale imitations, enough times, to inoculate themselves from hype and ceremony. Instead, they've concentrated on their neurotic craft and sullen art. See them live at the following dates.
'Midnight Oil' / 'Drunk No More' is due for release on 7" vinyl this April 21st via Concrete Recordings. Pre-order here - http://www.concreterecordings.co.uk/shop/conc024-shaking-chains-midnight-oildrunk-no-more-7.

Tour Dates

July 21st Tooting Tram & Social for John Kennedy, XFM

Shaking Chains are: Jack Mahoney - Lead Vocals/Guitar, Nathan Mcilroy - Bass/Vocals, Alex Solo - Guitar/Vocals and Jack Hardiker - Drums/Vocals.


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