Deacon Blue tease new album and tour with demo single release
Deacon Blue released a brand-new single this week, Much Too Close To Love (Demo) as a teaser for a planned expanded tour edition of their current album.
Although labelled as a demo, it is fully formed with backing and instrumentation but was too late for inclusion when The Great Western Road was due to be delivered. A mid-tempo reflective love song, the new release shows a softer side to vocalist Ricky Ross and is over far too quickly. Might it have changed with more studio time? We may find out if it becomes part of the new set within the forthcoming arena tour.
Speaking of which, the band have also announced that the expanded ‘Tour Edition’ of the album will be a limited edition and will feature five new tracks and have an extended notebook written by Ricky.
He said, “This an expanded version of ‘TGWR’. It includes three songs we cut at Rockfield in October ’24 and a couple of songs that never quite made it in time for that session. We thought it would be good to bring all these tracks together as they all come from the same writing period and often hold similar themes (musically and lyrically)”.
Ricky added: “It’s also a chance for us to pay tribute to our great companion, Jim Prime, who passed away in June. His playing is a huge part of these songs and his own song, ‘Connie and Sam’ was a strong contender to make the final cut but can now be heard on this collection”.
The song is a jaunty little singalong with a repetitive harmony, a conversation between Connie and Sam, but very much in the style of Deacon Blue. The other demo on the set is called Her and is a faster pace narrative with more signature harmonies.