MNRK UK and Cold Years are excited to announce the Friday, April 26 release of 'A Different Life,' the rising Scottish rock quartet’s brand new full-length album.
Recorded at The Barber Shop Studios in New Jersey by producer Brett Romnes (Anxious, Hot Mulligan, Boston Manor, The Movielife), A Different Life follows Paradise, the band’s 2020 politically-charged look at life in their hometown of Aberdeen, and 2022’s soaring & musically daring follow-up, Goodbye To Misery.
Packed with songs that are both intensely personal and universally relatable, A Different Life is led by “ Roll With It ,” a scorching, socially-charged punk rock anthem with an infectious chorus that feels like it's been bubbling in your veins forever. "Life is not an easy thing to contend with,” frontman Ross Gordon declares. “Between long hours of working your ass off, trying to see family and friends and having the occasional self-destructive streak, sometimes it’s natural to want more. This song is about wanting more from your life — the person you once were is gone."
There are some albums that immediately transcend time and space, regardless of genre, while simultaneously capturing the very moment out of which they were born. It’s an incredibly difficult balance to get right, but with their third full-length, Aberdeen’s Cold Years have done just that. Because from the moment A Different Life blasts off with the pounding beat of opener “Over” — a riotous punk anthem about removing a toxic person from your life — this album manages to make sense of a world that’s lost most of it. Simultaneously, it also feels like the record you’ve been waiting for to fill the void in your life for your entire life. You can feel it in these songs. That’s something the band — Ross Gordon (vocals/guitar), Finlay Urquhart (guitar), Louis Craighead (bass) and new drummer Jimmy Taylor — noticed as well.
“This is the first time I’ve ever come out of a studio able to listen to the tracks, where, and I say this 100% with conviction, we went in and did everything we wanted to do and more,” says Gordon. “I’ve never done that. I’ve always come out feeling like we could have done something better or different. But this album changed the game for all of us as a band. We didn’t just do twelve tracks that sound the same. We tried to make things a little different. That happened naturally, and it’s the most musical experience I’ve ever had. I definitely feel a confidence with this record that I didn’t feel on the others.”
Cold Years - A Different Life CD