Category: We Were Promised Jetpacks

Today’s featured band have been around for quite some time without ever really making a commercial breakthrough.

We Were Promised Jetpacks formed, while all the band members will still at school, in 2003.  I first came across them in 2008 when they were gigging regularly in Glasgow, and in due course they went on the road with Frightened Rabbit during the tour to promote The Midnight Organ Fight.

Jetpacks were a classic four-piece band in those days, consisting of Adam Thomson (vocals, guitar), Michael Palmer (guitar), Sean Smith (bass) and Darren Lackey (drums).   They were a tight and very entertaining band, full of vigour and youthful energy, as well as having a decent set of indie-rock songs with which to entertain audiences. It was no surprise that their debut album, These Four Walls, proved to be a good one.  It was released in June 2009 on Fat Cat Records (home also to Frightened Rabbit and The Twilight Sad at the point in time) and the future looked bright.

It took two years for the follow-up, In The Pit Of The Stomach, to be released, again on Fat Cat.   I caught them live on their own headlining tour around this time, but it must have been a bad night, as I came away a bit underwhelmed, certainly in comparison to how they had come across back in 2009.  I bought the CD, but it never quite hit the spot in the same way as the debut had.

I really thought that would be the end of the band, especially as their mentors had moved on somewhat, but Fat Cat were happy to stick with them and a third album, Unravelling, came out in October 2014.  I actually managed to see them about a year later as they were the support act for The Twilight Sad at a Glasgow Barrowlands gig.  They were again quite excellent, but to my shame, I didn’t get myself along to their own headlining show in King Tut’s the next time they were in the city.

Wiki has now had to become my friend, and I’ve read they have been a trio since Michael Palmer took his leave in July 2019 at the end of an American tour which was centred around the 10th anniversary of the debut album and the promotion of their fourth studio album, The More I Sleep The Less I Dream, which had come out in September 2018 on the Big Scary Monsters label.

2021 saw a new album, Enjoy The View, recorded by the trio who remained. There was a European and US tour in 2022 on which Andy Monaghan, who was with Frightened Rabbit for a decade, right up until Scott Hutchison‘s sad death in 2018, played guitar.

The band will be out on tour in December 2023, playing shows in Sheffield, Newcastle, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol, Birmingham and London.  Although I have ‘lost touch’ with what they’ve been doing in recent years, the reviews of the live shows indicate they remain a very decent act when on stage.

Here’s a song of theirs of which I have long been fond.  I associate a lot with those shows back in 2008/9.

mp3: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices

I’ve tracked down one from the most recent album:-

mp3: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Fat Chance

It’s quite decent.   I’d probably have gone along to the Glasgow show in December, but it clashes with the annual holiday to far off places……

JC

From All Music:-

Half bracing post-punk and half tuneful indie pop, Glasgow’s We Were Promised Jetpacks feature vocalist/guitarist Adam Thompson, guitarist Michael Palmer, bassist Sean Smith, and drummer Darren Lackie. The group formed while the four were still attending an Edinburgh high school, where they won a battle of the bands contest with their very first gig. After graduation, the band relocated to Glasgow, and their sound matured as well, moving from simple song structures and clean guitars to a more ambitious, anthemic approach. They were also inspired by The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbit, and these influences could be heard on the three-song demo the band recorded, which received airplay on BBC, XFM, and Q Radio in the U.K., and KEXP in the States.

In 2008, We Were Promised Jetpacks toured as Frightened Rabbit’s opening act; that year, they were signed by Fat Cat Records (also home to both Frightened Rabbit and the Twilight Sad). In 2009, two singles, Quiet Little Voices and Roll Up Your Sleeves, preceeded their full-length These Four Walls.

They followed up the next year with the EP The Last Place You’ll Look, which featured some unreleased tracks and more orchestral rearrangements of some of the songs from their previous album.

In 2011, the band returned with another full-length effort, the more driving In the Pit of the Stomach. While they toured in support of the album, they recorded E Rey: Live in Philadelphia, a live album named after the band’s tour manager that was released in early 2014. During that time they also recorded their third album, Unravelling, with producer Paul Savage, which arrived in October 2014. Shortly before the album’s release, multi-instrumentalist Stuart McGachan joined as the band’s fifth member.

As you might imagine, I’ve seen We Were Promised Jetpacks a fair few times – particularly when they were very busy establishing a name for themselves back in 2008 and 2009, and they rarely disappointed. They’ve sort of disappeared off my personal radar in recent times although just over a year ago they played a great set in support of The Twilight Sad at the Barrowlands. I notice that they are playing in King Tut’s next month and there’s a fair chance that I’ll head along and give the new material a try. In the meantime, here’s the debut single:-

mp3 : We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices
mp3 : We Were Promised Jetpacks – Let’s Call This A Map

Enjoy