Words by Chiara Strazzula
It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been five full years since Tugboat Captain last graced us with a full-length offering of their quirky indie-pop stylings. Call it an artefact of the bizarre sense of time contraction caused by two full years of lockdown – the London outfit have been among the many bands releasing a record in 2020 and seeing it get less public exposure than it deserved due to everyone’s lives grinding to a sudden halt – but it really feels like yesterday since ‘Rut’ expanded on its two 2017 predecessors and cemented the band’s status as a bona fide staple in the London independent music scene. Coming in fast and hard at the start of their career, it is interesting by contrast, now, to see what Tugboat Captain have produced with such a lengthy period of reflection on their hand. The first piece of good news: even from the first few bars of ‘Dog Tale’, the namesake single offering us an early peek into what the new record is going to be like, the band’s distinctive voice remains fully recognisable. All of the hallmarks that made their music so enjoyable even from their very early days are still here: a wide, breathable feeling to the melodies, a ripple of bluegrass influences surfacing where you least expect them, and most importantly, a pervasive sense of playfulness which constantly reminds you this music is supposed to be, first and foremost, fun. The latter is more important than anything else: so many indie pop acts are shackled to an ingrained habit of navel-gazing, that it is genuinely refreshing to see one setting out to genuinely have fun and share the experience of it with the audience.
It helps, certainly, that the band members are also real-life friends, and have been for quite a while; there is a tongue-in-cheek quality to the track that makes it feel a little like an inside joke. The feeling is shared with the accompanying video, which centres on a ‘reverse dog show’ of sorts, in which the dogs don’t have the slightest intention to perform any tricks and in the end it’s the owners receiving the scores. It is as light-heartedly chaotic as it sounds, and while it shares the fun mood of the track, it is also an interesting contrast to its construction, which is not chaotic at all: airy and melodic, it is also precise in the way that it unfolds, and clean in its delivery. It is, in fact, a great example of how a track can stay true to a real DIY ethos, and sound like it, without coming across crafty or unpolished. Far too often ‘DIY pop’ has become an excuse for finished products which feel just sloppy; this has never been the case with Tugboat Captain, an outfit which has always been notable for attention to detail, but there is a feeling now, with this track, that the concept has been elevated further, bringing through the idea that something can still be recognisably a DIY indie product and yet come across refined. This is the kind of growth you’d expect – or at least hope for – from a record coming out after such successful predecessors and after a lengthier period of gestation, and certainly for a band whose potential to keep building on the foundations laid by those earlier records has always been clear.
We do not know, of course, what awaits us in the rest of this new album; only time will tell – ‘Dog Tale’, the full record, releases on April 25th, and Spring feels like an excellent mood fit for the music of Tugboat Captain in general. If title tracks are, however, inevitably to be interpreted as manifestos of sorts for the contents of the albums they share a name with, then we can expect this record to match, if not the exact stylings, at least the energy of a single that can’t be described in any other way than delightful.
With more new music to come, 2025 looks like it’s going to be a great year for Tugboat Captain.
Tour Dates
23rd April - York - The Fulford Arms
24th April - Newcastle - Little Buildings
25th April - Halifax - Grayston Unity
30th April - Bristol - The Lanes
1st May - Newport - Le Pub
9th May - London - The Ivy House
10th May - London - The Ivy House
5th June - Falmouth - The Fish Factory
26th June - Portsmouth - Deco
27th June - Brighton - Folklore
28th June - Rainham - The Oast
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