The Halcyon Band 'Sirocco' release is Monday 30th September 2002 (Europe only). The album will be released in America in early 2003 to co-inside with a US tour. Until then the album is available to buy on-line exclusively through the eggBERT site (from 30th October).

So far most of the attention The Halcyon Band have received on two continents has been focused on comparisons with the US West Coast of the 60s and the new breed of retro-New York punk bands that have hogged headlines from Seattle to Stockholm.

Anyone expecting a Love/Strokes hybrid with Sirocco should leave their preconceptions in the CD sleeve when they hit play. If you wanted to describe the Halcyon sound purely in comparative terms you'd have to include The Beatles (and the unimaginative generally do), The Who, Beck, Dylan, Sly Stone, The Stooges, Primal Scream, The Pixies and Big Star, to name a few.

This is a band that refused to accept the small-town strangulation of a city trapped between northern grimness and sterilized history - and simply spread the boundaries of their world to include the wide open spaces of America; in particular LA, the seat of many of the Halcyon's early influences and where half of Sirocco was recorded. The album's opening salvos, the equally nihilistic 'Machine Gun Fire' and 'Nice Day', might allude to the claustrophobia of small-town life, but where other bands have built albums - even careers - on the back of that one-trick pony, the Halcyon's take it further.

Listen to Tom Johnson's thunderous tidal wave of Moon-like drumming on 'Nice Day', feel Sam Forrest's proto-funk bassline grab you on 'We're All Dying And We Want Our Freedom', get drawn along by Dave Hunt's guitar; varied, but always arresting. This band has so much to offer. Whether Danny Slack is belting out his vocals, like on 'The Year of the Rat', or softly drawing you in on the blissed-out 'Hold On', his lyrics emote a range of feelings distilled from all the things you do to fill the emptiness between cradle and grave.

This album is a journey through that emptiness. As Sirocco draws you to the existentialist crescendo of 'We're All Dying And We Want Our Freedom' before sweetly releasing you with the beatific, barbed, 'Better Son', the spirit of the album is crystallized. Shit job? Shit town? Love life DOA? Fuck it. You're gonna die anyway. Life is what you go through before then. Let The Halcyon Band be your guides.

'Packed with frantically strummed guitars, vintage West Coast harmonies and bursts of Who-like energy … immediately familiar, but with enough mystery to make you crave repeated spins' - LA Weekly

'Shot through with bead whirling, loon moon rolling drum fills, Arthur Lee preaching vocals, and melodious vibes, giving it the feel of the white-out bleached, acid edged Los Angeles hills … lashes its way round your head until it collapses in a sweaty browed heap of windmill arm chordage.' - The Fly

'Three-minute nuggets of California-kissed guitar pop blessed with soft harmonies, joyous drumming and layers of guitars' - Here