In the autumn of 2023, London, UK’s Dealing With Damage had been without a bass player for a few months and they were fast running out of promising leads. There were no gigs, rehearsals or recordings to be had so singer and guitarist Ed Wenn filled the gap by writing a ton of new songs and putting together demos, ready to work on when a new bass player was found. In the absence of any other band activity working on those demos became an all-consuming passion into which he invested a lot of time and energy. The aim was to come up with material that didn’t sound like Dealing With Damage and wouldn’t result in just another version of the last album. This intention was reinforced from the outset with the new songs sketched out with a bass part, onto which were layered Sonic Youth-inspired guitar in tunings that they’d not used before, followed by vocals influenced by Jon Foxx and the 1979 school of arty, synth flavoured, post-punk. The results were exciting and the material for the next album felt like it was coming together really well, even if there wasn’t actually a band in place to start work on it.
Finally, in November 2024, bassist Owen Cox was recruited into the Dealing With Damage ranks and, with a mixture of relief and no small amount of excitement, rehearsals & studio time were booked. Twenty minutes into the first rehearsal though two things became glaringly obvious. Firstly, Owen was the perfect fit: brimming with energy, talent and ideas and with a playing style that immediately took Dealing With Damage to a very different place. Secondly, those demos from the summer and autumn had to go. The inspiration and the intention to move on could be retained, but Dealing With Damage was suddenly a very different band with a significantly expanded sonic horizons and it demanded different material. Dealing With Damage have today released their third album, The London Particular, via Serial Bowl Records, the album is named after the original phrase used to describe what came to be known as London, UK’s ‘pea souper fogs’ as far back as 1820.
“This was because of all the particles in the air,” explains singer/guitarist Ed Wenn. “So hence The London Particular. It describes a dangerous smog, and it sounds like a newspaper title, so we thought it was a good vehicle for our take on the fog of shit that’s going on in the world at the moment with the added nod to our hometown where the album was written, rehearsed and recorded.” (Ed Wenn)
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