It�s gonna be a damned Good Friday � Easter 2021 sees the return of noirish alt.goth roustabouts DESPERATE JOURNALIST
who pile back into the marketplace with a brand new single called �Fault� on April 2nd. Driven along by Simon Drowner�s ear-popping bassline �Fault� finds the quartet in impeccably brutalist form
all banshee howls and lacerating lyrics from singer Jo Bevan. �And those teenage hangups are hard to beat / When your closet is piled up with defeat
� she snaps at one especially prickly point
as alongside her guitarist Rob Hardy and drummer Caz Hellbent add fuel to the sonic flamings.

�Fault� is the first track to be hauled from Desperate Journalist�s forthcoming and thoroughly forthright fourth album
�Maximum Sorrow!�
recorded entirely in Crouch End in lockdown and released on July 2nd. Here�s what Jo says of this first shot from the longplaying bows�

"The lyrics for 'Fault' were initially written quite intuitively and informed by what sounded good mouthwise with the kind of melody I thought the song needed - quite sonorous
Jim Kerr-y vowels. As I edited it into something which actually made sense
it naturally turned into a memory-screed about a terrible flat I once lived in and how the place itself seemed to reflect all the misery going on in my life at the time. I quite like the idea of a song sounding so big and dark and kinetic but with lyrics set mostly in quite a small space where nothing really happens except for unexpressed turbulent emotion.

�Structurally it's unusual for us in that it a) doesn't have many guitars on it and b) has a shifting hook/chorus which doesn't happen at the times you'd necessarily expect. It was more of a textural exercise to record too which was really enjoyable and interesting - there are two drumkits on the recording and also synth undercurrents to make it extra propulsive and intense."

So post-punk has made it into the springtime pages of The Sunday Times? Oh
DO keep up - Desperate Journalist have been raging against the corporate machine for aeons with their melodramatic blend of traumatised guitars and artbroken vocals. In fact
�Maximum Sorrow!� will represent their fourth full album release in the six years since the �Desperate Journalist� debut appeared in 2015. Sophomore effort �Grow Up� stormed out in 2017 and 2019 saw the search for �In Search Of The Miraculous�.

Throw in a couple of five-track EPs (�Good Luck� and �You Get Used To It�) and their melody-shattering proficiency is apparent for all to see. Add in a litany of ten-out-of-ten media reviews and utterly devotional followings from desperate fanboys and fangirls from Birmingham to Berlin and Desperate Journalist�s incredibly credible status is more bulletproof than ever before.

In fact
what really is impressive this time around is that �Fault� sounds so alive but as it was written and recorded in lockdown it has never actually been played live � now that really does take some creative skillings.

Last seen in London Town packing out Rough Trade East and Highbury Garage in the spring of 2019
new post-punk-pandemic Desperate Journalist live plans have been laid
like this:

Sat 19th February 2022 | Lafayette | London

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