Hugh Cornwell is one of the UK’s finest song-writing talents and accomplished live performers. The original guitarist, singer and main songwriter in The Stranglers enjoyed massive UK and European success with ten hit albums and twenty-one top forty singles, etching himself into the UK’s musical psyche with Peaches, No More Heroes, Golden Brown, Always the Sun, Grip, Nice N Sleazy, Duchess, Walk on By, Strange Little Girl and Skin Deep.

Following rave reviews in the UK, Hugh Cornwell’s new studio album TOTEM AND TABOO is set to be released in the US on June 25th, via Red River Entertainment and through Red/SONY Distribution. Recorded at Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago, the album was engineered and mixed by the legendary Steve Albini.

In support of the album, Hugh will perform US dates in October and December 2013 and will feature the new songs, as well as classic Stranglers material.

The Dead Superheroes Orchestra must be heard to be believed. A rock ensemble with dazzling string arrangements and a pitch-black wit, the DSO will take you on a journey from your hometown cemetery down to the depths of the Underworld, up to the cool, bare face of the moon, and back again. Dreamed up by brains steeped in Batman, Mozart, Dostoevsky and Dante, the Orchestra tells the tale of an angel and a boy who comes back from the dead. Their performances are part rock show, part chamber recital and part goth rock oratorio. A mad caucaphony of strings, guitars, drums, piano, and choir led by a melodramatic bass vocalist, the Dead Superheroes Orchestra is a band that entertains, perplexes and entrances audiences. The Dead Superheroes Orchestra were included in Mick Mercer’s book “Music to Die For”, published by Cherry Red Press. “I’ll spend my nights in the graveyard”, their first EP, is available for sale on iTunes.

Led by drummer Brad Elvis (Screams, The Elvis Brothers, Big Hello, The Romantics) and vocalist/guitarist/saxophonist Chloe F. Orwell (Big Hello), Chicago’s The Handcuffs will be releasing their fourth studio album Burn The Rails. The 13-song album was tracked at Kingsize Sound Labs, Chicago with producer/engineer Mike Hagler (Wilco, Neko Case, Billy Bragg, Mavis Staples, My Morning Jacket, The Mekons). Burn The Rails is being released by Pravda Records in June on CD, download and via streaming platforms and later on 12″ vinyl.

For the the new album, The Handcuffs found inspiration from the heady, analog days of early 1970s rock & roll, weaving together elements of glam, indie, garage, art and blues rock. Inhabiting some of the same musical turf as T-Rex, Mott The Hoople, Roxy Music, The Raconteurs, P.J. Harvey, Led Zeppelin, and Patti Smith – all filtered through a modern lens – they deliver bold, sexy songs with memorable melodies and unexpected twists.

Guest keyboardist Morgan Fisher (Mott The Hoople) demonstrates his synthesizer and piano prowess on a couple of tracks on the new LP. The relationship with Fisher, a musical hero of the band, began after singer Orwell’s rave review of Mott The Hoople’s 2018 reunion tour went viral on social media, attracting the attention of Fisher, who got in contact. From there a creative collaboration was sparked, in-spite of an ocean separating the now real-life friends.

Finishing the record during the peak of the pandemic and lockdown, gave several of the songs an  inadvertent anthem-for-the-times feel – with themes of love and loss, heartache and hope, and even the great ideological divide that was as omnipresent as the virus.

Elvis and Orwell formed The Handcuffs from the ashes of Big Hello, their first band together, which released three indie label records and toured from coast to coast. Elvis’ career also includes a few major label go-arounds, arena tours, and a backstory that will be documented in a new autobiography in the near future. The duo’s eagerness to explore new sonic territory and evolve into an entity that aligned more with their ever-expanding influences and broad range of musical tastes prompted a change. The Handcuffs began as primarily a studio project, in which Elvis and Orwell wrote and recorded an abundance of material. During the process, they realized that they missed the live band experience, and so The Handcuffs as recording artists and a dynamic live band was born. Completing the line-up are bassist Emily Togni, lead guitarist Jeffrey Kmieciak, and keyboardist Alison Hinderliter, all of whom originate from different parts of the country, but have made Chicago their home.