Bristol alt rock three piece Blank Atlas have released new single Same Mistake, with a DIY video shot in Tokyo, ahead of their biggest UK headline tour yet this November and December.
The hazy, grunge tinted track follows No Good, which landed earlier this summer. It is about the habit of running from your problems rather than facing them.
Guitarist Dan Thould wrote it almost without trying. “I had the whole song written in about 10 minutes,” he says. “I was messing about on the guitar while watching tv, and it just came out.”
“The song’s about the different ways you can not deal with your problems. The lyrics in the chorus is my brain talking to me from a different point of view about how I never learn from my mistakes and instead of facing them, and how I tend to run away from them. It’s got a grungy dreamo vibe which I really like, and it’s short and sweet!”
The video was just as unplanned. Dan and drummer Tom Thould were travelling around Japan when they realised Tokyo would work as a backdrop, so they shot the whole thing on an iPhone and edited it themselves.
“It was a bit of a happy accident,” says Tom. “We realised shortly before arriving that this would be such a cool location for a music video. Since it was so last minute, we shot the whole thing on an iPhone and edited it ourselves. So it was a really DIY approach for this one. We had a blast wandering around Tokyo and doing karaoke etc, and we’re super chuffed with the outcome!”
The band take Same Mistake on the road from 6 November, with dates from Glasgow to Falmouth. The run includes a hometown show at Bristol’s Cafe Kino on 13 November.
- 6 November: Lounge, Alton
- 11 November: Bloc, Glasgow
- 12 November: Night & Day Cafe, Manchester
- 13 November: Cafe Kino, Bristol
- 18 November: The Rainbow, Birmingham
- 19 November: The Pipeline, Brighton
- 29 November: The Bullingdon, Oxford
- 2 December: The Cornish Bank, Falmouth
- 3 December: The Junction, Plymouth
- 5 December: Smokey Joes, Cheltenham
Tickets are on sale via blankatlas.co.uk.
Blank Atlas are twin brothers Dan Thould (guitar and vocals) and Tom Thould (drums and vocals), plus bassist and vocalist Chris Simpson, who they met at school when they were 11. The three piece deal in three part harmonies, dirty riffs and huge choruses, with reference points running from Meshuggah to McFly.
They have shared stages with Holding Absence, Jamie Lenman, Puppy, LostAlone, Fatherson and Dream State. Debut album Dawn Chorus arrived in 2023, with support from BBC Radio 1, Kerrang! Radio, BBC Introducing and Amazing Radio.
That same year they made their 2000trees debut, which Kerrang! called one of the biggest small band buzzes of the weekend. They were later named on the 2024 2000trees line-up, and returned to Upcote Farm this summer for an acoustic set, where they first played No Good.
Photo by James Farmer (@thethingsjamesdid).
Add as a preferred source