2024 looks set to be a pretty turbulent year. There’s a general election coming, plus the ever-constant spectres of industrial disputes, climate change and continuing socio-economic disparity between the haves and have nots. It is perhaps an apt time then for the return of the critically acclaimed political singer/songwriter Grace Petrie as she today announces her forthcoming album Build Something Better, out on the 8th March via The Robot Needs Home Collective.
To celebrate Grace has also released the first single from the album, the rousing ‘Start Again’. Combining an unwavering acoustic riff with gentle piano melodies, the song is a deeply felt ode to the power of solidarity, and how, even in the darkest of times, it can help you pick yourself up and re-join the fight.
“In early 2020, as life ground to a halt so soon after the defeat of the last general election, I found the rolling news cycle to be a relentless tide of negativity”, Grace explains on the song’s origins. “’Start Again’ is meant as an antidote to that feeling. Through references to the political upheavals of the last few years, and lessons learned from lockdown about what really matters in life, it aims to reassure the listener that however endless it feels, however hopeless the horizon might look, with solidarity on our side we can always come back, regroup, restart.”
In the fourteen years since Grace first wrote a protest song things in the UK have gone from bad to worse. A decade and half of Tory rule has left a country devastated by austerity, and riven apart by division and culture wars, stocked up to hide the governments failings. All of this has led Grace Petrie to understand that anger is not just an understandable reaction to the world we live in, but a necessary one if anything is ever to change. Build Something Better is the result of this realisation, eleven tracks brimming with barely contained rage, but also tinged with optimism that through cooperation we can make a better world. Produced by, punk-folk troubadour, Frank Turner it is Grace’s biggest sounding record to date.
“As veteran master of empathic music, Frank Turner was the first and last choice to produce. His pitch perfect instincts have taken my howls of rage and turned them into what I hoped it would be: a soundtrack for hope”, Grace says on the collaboration.
Grace will be bringing these new songs, along with a raft of fan favourites, to stages up and down the UK through February and March, and with more than a few festival announcements to come, 2024 is set to be a big year for one of the country’s best song writing talents.
Artist’s website: https://www.gracepetrie.com/
Tour dates:
21st February – Oh yeah Centre – Belfast
22nd February – Whelans – Dublin
24th February – Academy 2 – Manchester
28th February – Brewery Arts – Kendal
29th February – Summerhall – Edinburgh
1st March – Glasshouse – Gateshead
6th March – Glee Club – Birmingham
7th March – Brudenell Social Club – Leeds
8th March – Rescue Rooms – Nottingham
9th March – Philharmonic Music Room – Liverpool
13th March – The Bullingdon – Oxford
14th March – Islington Assembly Hall – London
15th March – Concorde 2 – Brighton
16th March – Norwich Arts Centre – Norwich
20th March – The Junction – Cambridge
21st March – Wedgewood Rooms – Portsmouth
22nd March – Phoenix – Exeter
23rd March – Trinity Centre – Bristol
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