Cusp Unveil ‘Human Nature’ With Tom A. Smith Ahead Of Overseas Shows
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Share The Single ‘Human Nature’ Featuring Tom A. Smith
From The Debut Album ‘English Country’, Out October 16th – Pre-Order Here
‘Human Nature’ unites two of the brightest emerging talents in the indie world: the Noel Gallagher-approved CUSP and the hotly-tipped Tom A. Smith. Their performances of the song have received rapturous receptions at the Isle of Wightand Truck Festivals as well as on tour with Lottery Winners, with both clearly relishing their time together on stage. The track features on CUSP’s debut album ‘English Country’, which follows on October 16th.
A track which feels both refreshingly new and if you have always known it, ‘Human Nature’ is indicative of Dan Stock’s flair for timeless songwriting. The pair each lead with a verse and a chorus, their voices naturally complementing each other, before they intertwine for its rousing, redemptive finale. Further heightened by some blunt-yet-eloquent lyrics (“You’re a hard worker for the company / And a straight talker on Chardonnay”), it is as the title suggests a reflection of ‘Human Nature’ – if we can accept our weaknesses in the present, we can learn to be better in the future.
Dan Stock says, “It was an honour to have Tom join us on this track. We’ve been fans of each other’s music and good friends for a while, and we’d always loosely talked about doing something together. It all happened really naturally. We sent him the full album, he picked out ‘Human Nature’ and came back with his vocal, and it just seemed to work straight away. He’s got such a distinctive voice and hearing him come in on the song just felt right.
It feels like the right time to re-release the song in the build-up to the album. We’ve spent a lot of the summer playing together on tour and across festivals, so what started as a spontaneous collaboration has ended up becoming part of the story of the record. He can’t get away from us!”
The track was written by Dan Stock, performed with his CUSP bandmates Adam Webster (bass) and Jack Gooderham (drums), and was produced by Jake Robbins.
The other singles that have previewed the ‘English Country’ album highlight the songcraft and vulnerable emotional fervour that resonates throughout the record. The title track introduced the record, the kind of high-intensity, swaggering anthem that can become a signature song for them, before the string-soaked Arctic Monkeys-meets-Burt Bacharach melancholy of ‘Me and Lilly In The Falling Rain’ felt like this generation’s answer to the cinematic balladry of The Verve. And there’s much more waiting to be discovered on the record.
The ‘English Country’ album is available to pre-order HERE. It will be released on limited baby blue vinyl, CD and digital formats.
CUSP head out on a UK headline tour next month, which culminates with a London show at the Water Rats – tickets for are available HERE. They are also confirmed to play the This Feeling stage at the Viva Sounds Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden with more shows to be announced.
The dates are:
OCTOBER
22nd – Manchester, Deaf Institute Lodge
23rd – Newcastle, Zerox
24th – Glasgow, Audio
NOVEMBER
5th – Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge
6th – Sheffield, Arundel Emporium
7th – London, Water Rats
26th-28th – Gothenburg, Viva Sounds Festival