Treetop Flyers have announced details of their new album Old Habits and released lead single and video “Castlewood Road”. Available December 3rd via Loose Music, Old Habits is the London band’s fourth long-player and the follow up to 2018’s critically acclaimed eponymous album.
Old Habits sees Treetop Flyers channelling influences from the likes of Faces, Van Morrison, George Harrison, The Who, Ronnie Lane and Traffic, moving away from the American West Coast vibe of their previous albums to focus to develop a sound that encapsulates the energy and feel of London and classic British Rock n Roll. “Castlewood Road” was written about the Stoke Newington street on which the band’s lead guitarist Laurie Sherman lives, and the accompanying video was shot in Laurie’s house.
“There have been many a British song about places where people lived or grew up and this is our kinda take on that,” explains frontman Reid Morrison. “We spent a lot of time there over the years writing and chatting, drinking coffee listening to records etc and Laurie actually mixed the new album (Old Habits) in that house too. So i guess it’s a love song and thank you to those walls really.”
Treetop Flyers were formed by Morrison, Laurie Sherman and Sam Beer, who met whilst playing in other projects as part of the West London folk scene. In 2013 they released their debut The Mountain Moves, an album praised by The Guardian who wrote that it, “effortlessly captures the spirit of late-1960s west coast pop-rock: the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,” as well as Q, who wrote that they, “share with Midlake custody of a brood of Buckingham/Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac licks, likewise the Mac’s mood of unrequited yearning.”
Treetop Flyers second album Palomino (2016) was praised by Uncut, who called it, “a fittingly great-sounding record, with the band magically tight and melodically assured as they play songs bathed in an evocative ’70s West Coast glow, while drawing on influences including outlaw country, soul and Nigerian psych.” The bands 2018 eponymous third album was described by Clash Magazine as “a bold, vivid return, one that finds Treetop Flyers pushing themselves further and further”, while Folk Radio wrote that Treetop Flyers was “glorious 60s tinged West Coast Americana with a British twist.”