The Hanging Stars

The Hanging Stars will perform at Norwich Arts Centre on 7 November 2026 at 8:00 pm.

London’s The Hanging Stars return with their sixth album, Just A Day, a collection of four-part harmonies, twelve-string guitars and chiming songs, touching on themes of longing, new beginnings and the fragility of the everyday. Recorded at Edwyn Collins’s Clashnarrow Studios in the Scottish Highlands, the album marks a new chapter for the band, produced by Teenage Fanclub's Gerard Love and Dexys’ Sean Read.

A line-up change at the end of 2024 proved to be a galvanising moment for The Hanging Stars. “We needed to rethink things,” says guitarist Patrick Ralla. “A new leaner approach – bass, drums, guitars, four-part harmonies. Certainly worked for The Byrds, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.” The result is a record full of hooks and a renewed vision.

Central to the record’s new direction was the involvement of Gerard Love, one third of Teenage Fanclub’s songwriting trio and the artist behind Lightships. Starting from demos exchanged between Glasgow and London, Love helped the band strip things back to their essence, guiding the sessions. He also joined the band for a week of recording, contributing vocals and arrangement ideas.

Just A Day is The Hanging Stars’ third album to be recorded at Clashnarrow Studios, Helmsdale, overlooking the Moray Firth. The studio, owned and run by Edwyn Collins and Grace Maxwell, is a place the band describe with reverence: “a sort of mixture between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and the BBC’s Repair Shop”.

The band recorded the core of the album in a single week in February 2025, using Edwyn’s vintage gear, including the Gretsch Blackhawk he used in his Orange Juice days and the Barnes & Mullins fuzz box heard on “A Girl Like You”. The Hanging Stars’ connection with Edwyn Collins extends beyond the studio: Patrick plays guitar in his band.

The new album was produced and engineered by longtime collaborator Sean Read, with overdubs and mixing completed at Read’s Famous Times Studios over the spring of 2025, and additional recording at bassist Paul Milne’s Seagull Studios in East London. Drummer Paulie Cobra anchors the record, lending his voice to the four-part harmonies. A core figure in the band’s story, Cobra has embarked on a sabbatical, making way for their new live drummer Charlie Salvidge (TOY, Proper Ornaments, Great Silkie) who will join the band.

Just A Day opens with “All Your Yesterdays”, moves to “The Glasshouse” with twelve-string jangle and a New York circa 1976 feel, “Let It Slide”, the country gospel drone of “Big Red Car”, and the meditative title track “Just A Day”. There are additional compositions from Patrick Ralla (“Keep On Making Me Wait”) and the first inclusion for bassist Paul Milne, who wrote “Show Me The Way”.

Their sound evokes The Byrds, Big Star, The Feelies, Spiritualized, Teenage Fanclub and Tom Petty, or Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground with Gorkys Zygotic Mynci.