ORIGINAL INDIE POP POETS TRASHCAN SINATRAS RETURN WITH “THE BITTER END”
TCS RECORDINGS
Success has always been found in the songs for joyful indie melodists, Trashcan Sinatras, ever since their four-decade journey began in 1986, and the legendary Scottish five-piece’s persistence with melodic, lyrically driven guitar pop can be heard on The Bitter End, the band’s first new music in four years. A typically taut three minutes of crystal-cut, jangle-imbued anthemism, the single comes as they mark 40 years as a band in 2026.
Led by enigmatic lead singer, Francis Reader, the band’s mid-eighties formation in Irvine, on Scotland’s west coast, blew a fresh breeze into observational, literary, and frequently romantic guitar music and ignited a long, unhurried journey for the band, initially supercharged by the band’s 1990 debut album, Cake, and standout hit single, Obscurity Knocks. A further five albums, including their third album, A Happy Pocket, originally released in 1993, yet finding reissue success in 2023 with a return to the UK Official Albums Chart, have emerged in between bursts of international touring.
Self-deprecatingly accepting of a “less careerist and more careering” definition of what it has been to be Trashcan Sinatras over the last forty years, the band’s latest work finds the band on the same, bashfully ambitious footing as ever. In the case of The Bitter End, the distorted chords, intricate bridging riffs, and unashamedly truck-sized chorus arrived in the dead of night.
Guitarist, Paul Livingston, recalls: “Francis had borrowed this huge digital eight-track machine and parked it in the living room of our Glasgow flat. One hungover morning, I was staring at the machine, and hazy memories started coming to mind. Did I really get up in the middle of the night and record something? What could it be? I pressed play and heard this Rockpile-ish rocker. Francis finished off most of the words, and there it stayed, waiting for its time to shine.”
Enjoying each other’s company in an unchanged line-up since signing to legendary London label, Go Discs! in 1987, Reader and Livingston have shared in the creation of The Bitter End alongside ever-present bandmates, John Douglas (guitars), Stephen Douglas (drums), and Davy Hughes (bass). Visibly active around releases over the past two decades, including their fourth and fifth albums, Weightlifting (2004) and In The Music (2009), the band last toured extensively throughout the UK and US in 2018 and 2019 prior to returning to the studio.
In a long lead-up to releasing The Bitter End, the last fans heard from Trashcan Sinatras was 2022’s accomplished Lay Of The Land EP, released in between a busy period of reissuing their much-loved Go Discs! albums on the Last Night From Glasgow label. Alongside their landmark debut, Cake, and mid-career high of A Happy Pocket, their second album, I’ve Seen Everything, was recommitted to physical formats, featuring the single, Hayfever, which charted inside the Top 20 of the US Billboard chart. The band’s latest and sixth album, Wild Pendulum, was released in April 2016.
Trashcan Sinatras
[Single]
(TCS Recordings)
Release Date: February 24, 2026
Stream The Bitter End HERE
Artist Links
Background Photo Credit: Chris Dooley
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