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May 07, 2020 By Samantha Small Photography by Ben Bentley I LIKE TRAINS

Leeds, England post-punk five-piece I LIKE TRAINS have announced their first studio album in eight years, KOMPROMAT, and have shared its politically charged first single, the six-minute long “The Truth,” via a Michael Connolly-directed video for the new song. KOMPROMAT is due to be released on August 21 via Atlantic Curve. In a monotone voice over ambient grumblings and an array of clips featuring prominent political figures and key moments in history, frontman David Martin delivers what he thinks “The Truth” to mean: “The truth is an exercise in patience/The truth is not what we signed up for/The truth is no longer concerned with the facts.”

The track is I LIKE TRAINS’ first new single since their 2016 soundtrack for the documentary A Divorce Before Marriage. But this album is similar to that of the band’s last studio album, 2012’s The Shallow, as the creation of the album derives from one specific “theme.” KOMPROMAT’s genesis was spurred after following Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks in 2013.

“We didn’t set out to write a record about current affairs, but the path we set out on converged drastically with that daily discourse,” Martin says in a press release. “The album inadvertently became about populist politics across the world. Brexit, Trump, Cambridge Analytica, and covert Russian influence ended up at the centre of it all.”

“The Truth” is a comeback track, nonetheless. And judging from the comments from the video, I LIKE TRAINS fans are more than eager to listen to the full LP. The band’s full lineup is David Martin (vocals/guitar), Alistair Bowis (bass), Guy Bannister (guitar/synths), Simon Fogal (drums), and Ian Jarrold (guitar).

KOMPROMAT Tracklist:

1. A Steady Hand
2. Desire Is a Mess
3. Dig In
4. PRISM
5. Patience Is a Virtue
6. Man of Conviction
7. New Geography
8. The Truth
9. Eyes to the Left (feat. Anika)

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