Chapel Club

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It’s the stuff of narcotic dreams and nightmares. It’s the fulfilment of the promise of a decade of sonic cellarscapes. It’s Kitchens of Distinction, Echo & The Bunnymen, Neu, My Bloody Valentine, The Cocteau Twins and - yes, okay - Joy Division encapsulated and crystallised in one almighty rush. It is ‘Palace', the debut album from London’s Chapel Club - and it is quite possibly the album of the year.

“In making the record, we were thinking in terms of artists like Mercury Rev,” says drummer Rich Mitchell. “We weren't scared to put extra sounds in there, to try interesting ideas. It felt like a good time to do it, at the start of a new decade.”

In the words of guitarist Michael Hibbert, it's also about "not being afraid to be too ambitious. We wanted to take the grandeur and force of the lyrics and make a record that resonates on a large emotional scale. It's music to thrill to."

As singer Lewis Bowman explains, it’s also the result of an ardent refusal to compromise. “We’re a new band, a young band, and we've had to find our feet quickly. Our approach this year has been to take things slowly and stick to our vision of what we are and can be. It's very much ‘this is what we want to do and you’re gonna have to make space for it in your plans because this is the way we’re operating’.”

Hence the photoshoot on the famous Abbey Road crossing wearing grotesque animal masks. Hence the unconventional recording sessions with the legendary Paul Epworth, which saw the band recording live in the same room as the producer, experimenting with Epworth’s wild variety of musical toys. And hence the cult following and insane industry buzz that swiftly grew around the band when they started gigging in late 2009, eschewing regular venues to play their cavernous and brilliant spire-rock in art spaces, warehouses and the back rooms of Jamaican pubs.

“We did things a bit differently to make it all more interesting,” says Lewis. “Whereas if we’d told people ‘We’re third on the bill at the Purple Turtle this Tuesday and after us there’s a hard rock band and before us there’s an electro duo’, people would’ve been like ‘Mmm, yeah, think I'm busy’.”

The resulting A&R battle for Chapel Club was among the most ardent of recent years, which came as a shock to the band. Though all apart from Lewis had been in bands before (Rich had been signed to an underground noise rock label aged 14: “Our only mention anywhere was an NME review that said ‘The sleeve is infinitely better than the racket it surrounds’ - we split up after six months”), it seemed particularly sudden to Mike, who'd been a little lost in the three years since his previous band split: “I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do at all. I had no money and no focus. No-one I knew had moved to London yet so I just sat there feeling sorry for myself, smoking shitloads of weed and starting to write songs.”

Next, Mike recruited a (then) 17-year-old bassist called Liam Arklie, new to London from Swindon, and the pair began to “hang out all day and try things out, then go out drinking. We repeated that process seven days a week for a while.”

The line-up grew with the addition of mild-mannered guitarist Alex Parry, Liam's best friend since childhood. But it wasn’t until Mike was introduced to Lewis that Chapel Club found their focus and their spark. Lewis had been writing stories and poetry for years, never showing it to anyone beyond a few close friends. "I wasn't bothered about getting published," he says. "I just wanted to get better. I had a vague hope of making something of it all one day, but I knew I had a long way to go before I could compete with the writers I respected. Then Mike asked me if I wanted to try writing something for this embryonic band he was putting together, and I thought I may as well have a go. It seemed like the perfect outlet."