The Beat headline Wolverhampton's Slade Rooms tomorrow
They've been on the road for almost 40 years, and Birmingham-based 2-Tone band The Beat are back to headline Wolverhampton's Slade Rooms tomorrow in support of a new album, Bounce, which was released earlier this year.
The first-generation 2-Tone skankers-turned-purveyors of joyous political pop, returned earlier this year with their first new album in more than 30 years.
Written by a combination of Ranking Roger, Mick Lister and Ranking Junior, it was produced by Lister (Bad Company, Amy Winehouse, The Feeling) and mixed by Tim Hamill with Lister.
The same energy that drove the hit singles of the 80s: Mirror In The Bathroom, Stand Down Margaret and Too Nice To Talk To - reggae looseness plus razor-sharp songwriting meets the paranoid pace of punk - is there again.
The sounds have been re-rubbed, freshened and refracted through the multiple dance sounds that followed on from 2-Tone, all the black-meets-white, bass-meets-melody mashups that The Beat helped to trigger.
They will be supported at their Slade Rooms show by up-and-coming Brighton rockers The RPMs.
The RPMs have already had big support from Tom Robinson & Steve Lamacq on 6 Music and Huw Stephens on Radio 1, and were honoured with a headline slot at Glastonbury 2016's BBC Introducing stage.
Touring their new Digital Disobedience EP, The RPMs will join The Beat on the road throughout December.
