Close Lobsters

Formed in Paisley, near Glasgow, Close Lobsters emerged in the mid-1980s in the wake of the British indie pop scene associated with C86, with a bright guitar sound, tense melodies and a pop tension that also places them on the jangly pop side. The band drew attention with 'Firestation Towers,' featured on NME's C86 compilation, before moving to Fire Records with the singles 'Going to Heaven to See If It Rains' (1986) and 'Never Seen Before' (1987). Close Lobsters then released two albums, Foxheads Stalk This Land (1987) and Headache Rhetoric (1989), where their songwriting refined a balance between melodic immediacy, light post-punk energy and more oblique atmospheres. At the end of the 1980s, Close Lobsters toured the UK, Germany, the United States and Canada, in a circuit marked particularly by American college radio, before a long hiatus. The group resumed activity in 2012 for a series of concerts, notably at European and New York popfests, then issued the EP Kunstwerk in Spacetime in 2014 and Desire and Signs in 2016. In 2020, Close Lobsters returned to the album format with Post Neo Anti: Arte Povera in the Forest of Symbols, reconnecting with the lively, melodic and slightly dreamy Scottish indie pop that runs through their entire career.