Web announce debut EP, share new single ‘Titanic’

WEB

Announce eponymous debut EP

Due 17 October via Practise Music

Listen to new single ‘Titanic’ here

EP Launch show at The Greyhound on 21 October

Tickets available here

Photo credit: Cole Flynn Quirke

Experimental noise quartet Web made a splash on the alternative London scene with their search-engine-defeating single ‘News’ earlier this year. And they are now back with a new single and news of their eponymous debut EP via Practise Music (Squid, Blue Bendy, deep tan) which is being released on 17 October.

On the new single guitarist Lucas Eveleigh says “Titanic came about during a jam. We thought Kristian’s rumbling bass part sounded like waves crashing against a ship, and when it combined with the shrill, alarm-like guitar part we found it sounded like the final moments on the Titanic. We built the song around that concept – the hectic intensity of the alarms ringing, the uneasy serenity before the final, crushing sinking sequence at the finale. At the time of writing we were living between Portsmouth and Southampton – where the Titanic departed from. Growing up around the docks and sea it was inevitable that it would find its way into the music at some point.”

And on the EP, he continues: “As a band we’ve always been obsessed with telling stories through our music, and in that sense Web is a concept EP. Each song tells a specific, individual story, but together they paint a picture – a kind of doom painting of spaceships crashing into the sun, sinking ships and apocalyptic news broadcasts, bookended with a vocal booth psychotic breakdown. It sounds hectic and noisy and chaotic on the surface, but we’ve spent a long time carving these songs out of sprawling jams, improvised live sets and failed studio sessions. We’re relentless tinkerers and ruthless perfectionists, and these tracks have taken many forms before they were recorded so brilliantly by our friends Soren Bryce and Daniel Huddlestone.”

“Being in a band with your brother can intensify things – the creativity, the highs, the lows – and this intensity is certainly captured in the record. It’s four stories, but it’s also our story.”

Although they released a standalone track, ‘Intimidation & Shame,’ in an early iteration of the band about five years ago, their eponymous debut EP represents a true starting point for Web. Having formed initially as a trio around brothers Kristian and Lucas Eveleigh and drummer Ben Roe in Portsmouth where they were all living at the time, the band moved to London and in 2023 they became a quartet when Kathryn Reed joined the band on flute.

Web are on a mission to make music as heavy as they can. Partly in response to the wiry post-punk sound that has been de rigueur for the last few years around venues like The Windmill and Shacklewell Arms, their dark and visceral sound combines thrashing drums and guitar without ever quite becoming metal. Indeed, their music serves up surprises, at turns appealing to fans of jazz, prog, rock, pop, noise and beyond.

This dualism runs deep within the band. Their first single is built upon it thematically (“the horrifying and mundane”) and it is reflected in their name with the natural and digital connotations you can draw from the word ‘Web’ highlighting it as a fundamental part of their makeup. This goes even deeper when you consider their use of traditional instruments to create something they hadn’t heard before.

The band have cut their teeth on the London live scene, supporting bands like Fat Dog, Blue Bendy and Heartworms recently, winning fans the old fashioned way at each show. They write their music collaboratively with every note and motif jammed out for hours on end in rehearsal rooms. Once they are fully happy with individual segments they pick out their favourite moments and try different arrangements into them until a song is born. The meanings of their songs are usually derived from these embryonic sessions, with feelings and images that come to the band during this process going on to influence the lyrics.

Web are Kristian Eveleigh (vocals and bass), Lucas Eveleigh (guitar), Ben Roe (drums) and Kathryn Reed (flute).