July Newsletter
Alreet lads n' lasses! There's two sides to everystory, you know - this much is true of the month in review. There's a part of me that believes the long-awaited LP release alone makes this an all-timer... it's not every month you release your DEBUT ALBUM! Add onto that the next gig booked and announced and you have yourself a fantastic four weeks for Four Blokes. However.. the pessimist within argues that we hardly REALLY did anything at all this month - all that REALLY happened is the Tiago mastered the last 2 tracks, I emailed some venues, and we hit "upload" on some songs... an accurate assessment of July is probably somewhere between those 2. Right - I'm already waffling and we haven't even got past the opening paragraph. Enclosed within this new edition of "The Four Blokes Newsletter" you will find a BUMPER SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLE on the album, with a few short pieces on "the art of the deal" and "a disasteous return to rehearsals" either side.
Beginning at the beginning, there were two weeks of inactivity; Tiago had just moved into a new house and I battled through a severe depressive and possibly psychotic episode, and thus the album was put on hold for a time. Hard to make progress when you're A) living it up, firing up the barbecue, drinking cans with the lads or B) phoning samaritans, unable to control depressive rumination, having panic attacks. While the "Four Blokes Newsletter" is committed to accurately providing updates and information on the band, it also strives to provide joy and smiles... for both these reasons I will reveal that my symptoms have massively improved and I am once again seeking professional help.
How does one wrangle a venue anyways!? I conceptualised the next live performance in my head - a Hobbit headline in late August to simultaneously bid farewell to the hometown before the big move to "The Big Smoke" and raise money for crisis aid in Palestine. No bookings avaliable at the Hobbit until 2026 apparently! After neither Sholing FC nor Kingsland Community Centre replied to my venue booking enquiries, I decided to try and haggle with fringe theatre "The Stage Door" - somehow I got the hire down from £400 + £100 for the sound and light technician to £200 with free guy! This is still the most I've ever paid for a venue and we aren't making a penny of it back (100% of sales donated to Gaza) but after my first payday from Brexiteer-frequented pub "The Prince Consort" I was feeling SPENNY!
The poster for this new stage production was designed by Oscar Watson - after bumping into me in a Budgens Supermarket in Swanage, he proposed the idea of creating some artwork for the band via digital message. I liked some of his tribal-style reduction prints of men made of wood so I took him up on the offer - find above some unused iterations of the design, leading up to the final piece. As for the itinerary for August 30th, I shall reveal only basic details for now... M.U.G.A. are on support once more, now with another year's experience under their belt following a previous slot with the Blokes in 2024. New original "Telephones" is fantastic, choreography and all. Look out for horns and a plethora of percussive utensils! I want Four Blokes set to remain a suprise, so my only comment for now is that it has been adapted for the new theatrical setting. I'll leave it there for now.
As a small aside before our BUMPER SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLE, I also wrote a 2000 word essay on Four Blokes songs as the final step in my University Application, touching on such areas as "lyrics and aesthetics" and "music theory". You may be deeply concerned about my chances of enrollment if you are envisaging paragraph upon paragraph analysing the verses of "Munter Munter Munter" - but fear not! The tracks featured are all second album material, including a score for string quartet and a three minute journey through the evolution of electronic music soundtracking a poem about anxiety attacks and gender identity....
I was also interviewed by a Blog called "Doomscroll" about the band - will link that on instagram when it comes out. Had a lot of fun and I feel for the poor lady who has to go through a 50 minute dictaphone recording of me. Anyways - the main attraction
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"My Great Big Feckin' Farm" - The 14 track debut album by Four Blokes
On July 20th 2025, Tiago mixed and mastered the last 2 tracks for the album. 354 days after recording finished, a delayed release was finally possible. It was only right to celebrate with a couple of beers and spliffs after many agonising months in which the release date drifted ever further unto the future, and ever further away from the version of the band that made these songs. I must admit this feels more like an archive collection than a new album - a snapshot of Four Blokes as they were in late 2022. I hope the energy of those early gigs comes through in these recordings. The album was actually uploaded to streaming platforms the following day, at about 1 in the morning, after an arduous hour long battle with distrokid. I went to hit upload... "Computer says no". Upload error on track 1, try reuploading. I reupload track 1... upload error on track 2. Repeat for all 14 tracks - during this process I was sitting myself that the page would crash and I'd lose aaaaaall the credits I'd typed in for each song (on most streaming services you get the writers and producers but those of you on Apple Music get individual credits for each instrument). But we got there!
• The fun vibe of the album is enjoyable, jokiness of it and the real laughter in the songs
• Production is inconsistent from song to song
• The melodies are really catchy
• The songs tend to get better as they go along, especially Synchronise
• Some songs are very repetitive, especially Mango
• Some of it is conceptually clever, especially Light of the Lord
• It's exactly what you'd expect from a Four Blokes album
I agree with all those pros and cons. My personal view on it is it's not the album I'd make now at all, and I'm not really interested in this kind of music anymore, but if the choice is either this very delayed release or scrap the album I'd sooner release it. Production on the second album is pretty far along, and that's what my heart has been for a while now. I think the context of the 1st album is good for the 2nd as well. Anyways, a "quick" track by track breakdown of what's actually on the album then we'll move on.
Cara is the album opener - a real potboiler. Recording took place across 3 sessions, the first of which was just guitar and midi drums in September 2022. Vocals and bass were added on November 5 - Guy Fawkes day - while both of us were high on 2 tabs of acid. The "what the fuck?" at the start of the song is a genuine reaction to a hallucination, and the "I DON'T KNOW!" screaming in the bridge was also real. The bridge wasn't added until June 2024 because at the time we only had Garageband, and needed Logic to have the tempo scale up. This master was created by Finn in November 2024.
Mango is in the two-hole, following up a previously unreleased track with our biggest single. The song was taped back in July 2022, making it the oldest recording on the album; over 3 years by the time of release. This new mix differs significantly from the single, featuring a different vocal take and thus alternative ad-libs - it was mastered by Finn in January 2025.
I Can't Help Being A Lover was the last song written for the album, and has a reggae thing going on. It was recorded for inclusion on the Slices of Urinal Cake EP in 3 sessions across Feburary and March 2023. The bassline is far higher in the mix on the album version, and Tiago's "luvahhhhhhhh" at the end goes on for longer. This master was made by Tiago in June 2023.
Click My Fingers was taped in November 2023, during rehearsals for our ill-fated Portsmouth headline (the only time it's been played live). It features a waltz intro, probably the prettiest part of the album, before the listener in bombarded with punkiness once more. The quiet/loud duo of dynamics in the second verse correlate with the lyrics - she whispered let's go to the park, THE BLARING MUSIC LEFT BEHIND. Dawid makes his only appearance on the album, playing guitar here, and George takes up bass duty. Tiago made this master in July 2025.
Party Drug has been a live favourite since our very first gig, with its irresistible bassline and pale imitation of James Brown on vocals (literally pale). Another track originally recorded for the EP in February 2023, this is probably the song that differs the most from the originally released master. I was never happy with the vocal take on the previous version, and the new take on this one is much much better. The bass and guitar have been run through different filters and a new reversed section has been added to the outro. This master was made by Tiago in June 2025.
Everybody Is In Love With You is, in all honesty, a filler song, but we had a lot of fun with the fact that it is one - the mantra was "fuck it, we'll leave that in". The vocals and bass were recorded in November 2022, and the song was forgotten about until the final session for the album in July 2024. Wanting to get the song done as quickly as possible, Tiago only did one take of the guitar and looped it - this is why it cuts out for the double chorus at the end. I tried to get him to bang some pots and pans together to replace it, what I got instead was cowbell. This one take wonder approach means the guitar misses its que on every single chorus - we left it in because we thought it was funny. We also left in me forgetting the words in the last chorus because we thought it was funny. This master was made by Tiago in June 2025.
Synchronise closes Side A of the LP. It was one of the last tracks taped in June 2024, and the development of Tiago's guitar playing here is evident in comparison to earlier recordings. It was never intended to be released as a single, but due to further delays on the album we put it out as a stop-gap. This is the same master as the single version, made by Finn in September 2024.
Light of the Lord begins Side B, with a great big feckin' fill. The lead vocal was recorded in one take while lying in bed. Various characters sing backing vocals. Including Tiago's redneck and my drunkard. The original garageband file has been lost to time, so we had to remaster the song from Josh's original mix - I'd like to think this version is quite lot brighter and fuller, if you listen to them side by side. This mix was made by Josh in March 2023, remastered by Tiago in June 2025.
The Desert Song was the very last track recorded for the album, during the marathon session in July 2024. The song was written in December 2022 when we were locked out of the rehearsal room and unable to practice - when it came time to record the song 18 months later, all we had to work with was a 6 second clip of the bassline and the post-it notes the lyrics were written on. Tiago's groovy guitar work massively elevates what would otherwise be a throwaway song - he mastered the track in June 2025.
Darker was the first song written specifically for Four Blokes, and the last song to be mastered for the debut album. It was recorded during the March 2023 sessions for the EP, despite not featuring on it. The weakest element by far is the guitar that loops every bar, so we put the bass extremely high in the mix to compromise - it does clip a fair bit in points but to be honest with you I'm beyond caring! Tiago made this master in July 2025, 5 days before the album came out.
Garden of Eden is the one heartfelt moment on an otherwise - for want of a better word - blokey album. It's the first of four songs in a sequence I like to call "the death of punk", with this song representing an attempt to come out of the shell and express tender emotions and be all poetic. To be honest I rate this one quite a lot, there's a good semantic field of religious imagery in the lyrics. When we recorded this song in June 2023, it was about someone I'd been with for 6 months. By the time Tiago mastered it in June 2025, we'd broken up over a year ago and I'd been with Ava for over a year! A quite literal representation of why this album doesn't represent us now.
Munter Munter Munter is the next part of the "death of punk" sequence. Here, the protagonist massively retreats after being emotionally honest and spends the whole song slagging off a fat woman. The climax of the song, in which the lyrics are quite literally MUNTER (FAT) MUNTER (FAT) MUNTER (FAT MUNTER), takes punk to such a ridiculously stupid and meaningless place that it is killed - we can't possibly continue on in this vein as we have taken it to it's outer reaches of ridiculousness and meaninglessness. For this artistic statement alone I adore Munter Munter Munter - it also tickles my funny bone. It was recorded during the EP sessions in March 2023, and mastered by Finn in August 2024.
Popworld carries on this story arc by temporally regressing back to the band's first single. The tale is one of a loser teenager's failed entry to get into a terrible night club - c'est ne pas cool! "Blokecore" to the max, football references and all... quite a clever little lyric really. This is the 3rd version of Popworld released. First came the March 2022 single version, including the fart in the intro - this version literally wasn't mixed or mastered AT ALL. We rerecorded it completely in March 2023 for the EP, now with a techno outro... the opening monologue "Popworld remastered for quality control reasons" was actually a lie. It was re-recorded, not remastered idiot! This later became true when Finn made the album master in December 2023, bass boosted and overall cut hotter.
Torture ends this story arc by going back to an almost tribal place, screaming and shouting about sex and violence. The apathetic and bemused lead vocal down the middle is contrasted with the screams of agony either side - both represent Four Blokes. The album fittingly ends with "keep this bit in? Or leave it off? Sounds stupid" which isn't a skit, I was genuinely asking Tiago that. This is the 2nd version of Torture, if you were unaware there is an August 2019 version of the song on YouTube. This clocks in at 55 seconds - the screams of anguish were recorded at night time in a field so no one would be around to hear. It was introduced to the Four Blokes live set after we recieved requests to play it at The Loft, and a recorded version was made for release as a single - this November 2023 master, made by Finn, is the same as that single version. Nearly 6 years on from it's original release, Torture finally has it's home; the final track on "My Great Big Feckin' Farm".
I realise I have waffled on for absolutely ages so I will give my final thoughts on the album (yet again) and then we can all move on with our lives. Cons first so we end on the Pros - the difference in mixing between tracks is sometimes alarming, some of the songs repeat far too much, the vocals are naff in places, and the midi drums lack presence and power. But! It's got some bloody good ideas on it, all the songs are very catchy, I like almost all of the lyrics, at points it really rocks and - if nothing else - it is a truly unique album. That's all, I think.
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That SPECIAL FEATURE article really was BUMPER length, in the sense it went on for fucking ages. To quickly sum up the rest of the month - I ran 16 miles around Portchester and had a pungent biriyani, I had 5 pints of Guinness watching the All Ireland final and a further 2 at Heartbreakers which led to me falling asleep during "Majak Door", and then Four Blokes returned to rehearsals! This went extremely badly as many parts of the drums were missing so we could not rehearse. Absolutely no progress was made and it was just a waste of everyone's time. Maybe next week things will be better! I guess you'll find out in the next edition of The Four Blokes Newsletter...
Lots of lovin'
Harry x
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