THE BLUE AEROPLANES share new single ‘Going To Heaven In A Handcart’
Watch the video HERE
New album Tales From The Silver Lounge out 27th Nov on ArtStar Records
UK live appearances this Nov & Dec
Beloved Bristolian art-rockers The Blue Aeroplanes are today announcing new single ‘Going To Heaven In A Handcart‘. It is the second new song to be taken from their forthcoming album Tales From The Silver Lounge, out 27th November on ArtStar Records, and follows October single ‘Silver Lounge‘.
After two best-of compilation albums were released by Chrysalis Records in 2025 (Magical Realism: The Best Of The Blue Aeroplanes and Outsider Art: The Other Best Of The Blue Aeroplanes), the band are now back firmly in a sort of present with some predictably great songwriting on this, their 14th album.
The Blue Aeroplanes have been delivering their distinctive brand of rackety sprechgesang for four decades now, and they are showing no signs of slowing down here. Helmed by the inimitable Gerard Langley, the band create a whole new world in which to tell the story of The Silver Lounge.
Naturally, the songs take us on a wild guitar-driven ride, with poems that cover name-doppelgangers, falconry terms, Don Marquis, postcards, Greek mythology, abandoned Teslas, clocks going backwards, a meeting in God’s waiting room, suburban partying-envy, First World War ghosts predicting new conflicts and a factory full of dismembered dolls.
The lead single and title track gets its name from a John Byrne painting, which is also the album’s cover artwork. During long hospital stints in recent years, one thing Gerard found himself doing was reading through exhibition catalogues. The Byrne painting of a long-closed establishment on Paisley High Street is not only the cover art for this album but also now proudly hangs in his living room. The cafe in the painting’s imagined customers combines with some other themes, and things from the band and Gerard’s life to make the basis of most of the album.
Lead singer Gerard Langley comments on the new single ‘Going To Heaven In A Handcart’:
“Going To Heaven In A Handcart, the new Blue Aeroplanes single, is based on conversations overheard in the legendary Silver Lounge, a bar in the far corner of the galaxy. Generally, most believe that the entire universe is going to hell in a handcart, but a poet and some alternative guitarists in the corner are discussing a potential escape route…”
Continuing about the album he says:
“All the recording was done at Bristol’s Humm Studios in two intense sessions, and it’s got a seriously cool John Byrne painting on the sleeve, by kind permission of the John Byrne Estate.
It’s been made by a line-up that has lasted pretty much unchanged for fourteen years. The almost telepathic closeness of the band members is obvious all over the album, especially in the closing ‘Apostrophe Catastrophe Apostrophe’. Long-time fans take note, this is as good as anything we’ve done. New fans of ‘speak/singing’ bands, start here.”
Pre-order the forthcoming album ‘Tales From The Silver Lounge’ HERE
The Blue Aeroplanes UK live dates
Tue 24th Nov – Rough Trade East, London [buy tickets here]
Sun 29th Nov – Rough Trade, Bristol [buy tickets here]
Fri 4th Dec – The Fleece, Bristol – SOLD OUT
The Blue Aeroplanes are:
Gerard Langley: Lead vocals, tambourine
Mike Youé: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
Bec Jevons: Electric guitar, bells, lead vocals, backing vocals
Rita Lynch: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
Ed Taylor: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin, keyboards, backing vocals
Chris Sharp: Bass, backing vocals
John Langley: Drums, percussion
Wojtek Dmochowski: Dance
The Blue Aeroplanes – Tales From The Silver Lounge album tracklisting
1. Silver Lounge
2. Going To Heaven In A Handcart
3. Soap Star
4. We Must Stop Meeting Like This
5. The Post-War Occupation Of Jealous Town
6. Billy McCrae
7. Make Something Happen
8. Give Her The Bells And Let Her Fly
9. Doll Parts
10. Birds And Snakes
11. Apostrophe Catastrophe Apostrophe
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