Bombay Bicycle Club

Hailing from North London, the guitar-oriented indie rock group Bombay Bicycle Club first attracted widespread notice from both reviewers and audiences upon unveiling their opening album I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose in 2009. Their approach fused alluring, echo-drenched post-punk textures with buoyant, rhythmically inventive eccentricities that called to mind Orange Juice, Bloc Party, and Vampire Weekend, securing lasting favor among critics while they kept evolving through electronic and dance touches on the 2011 album A Different Kind of Fix and worldwide inspirations on 2014’s So Long, See You Tomorrow. After a three-year break, the band returned with Everything Else Has Gone Wrong, shaping refined post-punk numbers that examined middle age and worldwide unrest. Dry wit plus appearances from Damon Albarn, Holly Humberstone, and further guests distinguished their 2023 effort My Big Day.

The lineup of singer and guitarist Jack Steadman, guitarist Jamie MacColl, drummer Suren de Saram, and bassist Ed Nash first assembled in Crouch End during 2005, when Steadman, MacColl, and Saram were still enrolled at University College School alongside future members of Cajun Dance Party. Initially operating as the Canals, they cycled through several names across the next twelve months before Nash joined in 2006, prompting the choice of Bombay Bicycle Club after an Indian restaurant chain. Entry into Virgin Mobile’s “Road to V” battle-of-the-bands competition soon propelled the quartet from relative anonymity to one of Britain’s most discussed indie acts that year. Victory in the contest, previously claimed by Young Knives among others, earned them an opening slot at V Festival that August.

Multiple major-label proposals arrived, yet the band elected to issue their earliest recording on their own Mmm... imprint. Crafted with producer Jim Abiss, previously linked to Arctic Monkeys, the debut EP The Boy I Used to Be surfaced in February 2007 and earned positive notices, especially from NME. A second EP, How We Are, followed that October and entered at number two on the U.K. indie singles chart. After finishing upper secondary school the next June, the musicians spent the summer promoting the Young and Lost Club single “Evening/Morning” amid extensive U.K. dates. Reuniting with Abiss, they tracked their first full-length at Konk Studios that autumn.

Island Records secured the group as 2008 closed; their first long-player for the label, I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose, appeared the subsequent summer and garnered acclaim that helped secure the Best New Band prize at the 2010 NME Awards. July 2010 brought the sophomore release Flaws, an acoustic set recorded with instruments unplugged and including a version of Joanna Newsom’s “Swansea.” The following year they restored electric instrumentation on the Abiss-produced A Different Kind of Fix, whose atmospheric dance-leaning opening track was “Shuffle.”

The hypnotic So Long, See You Tomorrow arrived in 2014, its material shaped by Steadman’s travels across Europe and India; the album topped the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart and reached number 14 on the Alternative Albums chart. A supporting tour concluded before the quartet entered an open-ended hiatus in 2016 to pursue individual work. Nash issued the solo album The Pace of the Passing under the name Toothless the next year, while Steadman launched the Mr. Jukes project with the LP God First.

Reconvening later, Bombay Bicycle Club unveiled their fifth studio album Everything Else Has Gone Wrong in January 2020. Steadman and John Congleton produced the set, which contemplated aging into middle age along with anxieties over conflict, the climate, and societal divisions. Led by the affecting single “Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You),” it peaked at number four on the U.K. Albums Chart. A companion acoustic EP titled Two Lives, captured at Steadman’s residence, followed that July.

June 2023 saw the release of the dryly satirical single and title track “My Big Day,” previewing their sixth album. Issued that October, My Big Day again placed Steadman at the production helm, with supplementary production by Paul Epworth and mixing by Dave Fridmann; guest contributions came from Blur’s Damon Albarn, Holly Humberstone, Jay Som, and others.