THE WINTER OLYMPICS

On a Plane

At the tail end of 2012 The Winter Olympics released their debut album Profit and Loss through Exeter punk label Freakscene Records. The record: a decidedly DIY attempt to create a classic pop album, didn’t trouble the charts, but made the band a lot of new friends. Rock Sound thought it was “packed with delicious, throbbing, dance punk anthems,” Music Week called it “genuinely exciting… superbly crafted energetic guitar/synth post punk.” French style-bible Les Inrocks claimed the band’s songs, “erode the ayatollahs of smallpox indie rock”. People are more poetic in France.

Not everyone was quite so on board of course. Not that it matters; with the money they saved from their subscription to The Guardian (“Profit and Loss is too clever for normal people”) the band bought themselves some ridiculous new wheels, and proudly show them off in the genuinely world-class video for new single Heavy Metal Ending. Click here to watch it.

The video for HME was directed by Tim Hope, whose astonishing duck-revenge-fantasy (you must have seen it) for the Bingo Players’ Get Up’ is currently number one on the UK charts (and sitting at something like three million Youtube views).

The full-length version of the single (along with brand new Paul of Sound remixes) is out on iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, Spotify and the rest on Monday 18 February. The radio-friendly single edit is available now (if you want it) for free from
http://www.thewinterolympicsband.com/heavymetalending.mp3 go ahead and share it (and the video) with anyone you like.

We’d love to tell you that Heavy Metal Ending and its ‘all the bands you like are sh*t…’ refrain is a two-fingered riposte to the band’s critics, but really, it’s an unrequited love song dating back to Winter Olympics’ front man Andrew Wagstaff’s own time as a rock critic. It’s a recording of a row between drunk music journalists, a failed attempt to graduate from being ‘plus one’ on someone’s guest list to plus one in their life.

Next Show (single launch)

The Winter Olympics launch Heavy Metal Ending on Wednesday 20 February at The Bull and Gate in Kentish Town with special guests Damn Vandals and The Heavy Hearted. Tickets are on sale now for just four quid! http://www.wegottickets.com/event/205832