Track By Tracks: Final Coil - 1994 (2026)

The 1994 EP is a love story.    

It’s the story of going to a record store and hunting through the racks, not really knowing what you’re looking for, but knowing that you’ll recognise it when you find it.    

It’s the story of picking up a little plastic box containing songs, most or all of which you’ve never heard. Hell, maybe you’ve never even heard the band before, but you know them from some liner notes or an interview you read. 

  

It’s the story of sitting on the bus, or in the back of your parents’ car, obsessively reading every single word in the included booklet, from the credits to the thank you list – looking for some magic clue that only you can decipher.  

  

It’s the story of looking at the press shots and artwork, letting your imagination tell you what the record might sound like, and savouring the thought.  

  

It’s the story of finally getting home, racing to the nearest stereo, and losing yourself in a world quite unlike your own for the next forty minutes.  

   

For some people, that story becomes diluted over time. Other priorities take over, or, simply by virtue of repetition, that sense of wonder flickers and dies – the more so when everything is available to everyone all of the time.  

  

And it is a flame that needs to be nurtured.    

As someone who fell in love – I mean, really head over heels in love – with music in 1994, I have never lost that sense of wonder when I find a new album.    

But it’s not always easy.    

I don’t stream, I avoid the endless churn of pre-release videos, and I still trek to the few remaining record stores to browse the racks… hell, I still buy albums on the basis of artwork alone and, to this point, I have yet to be disappointed. It’s a way of keeping that sense of anticipation in an era where everything is kind of handed to us.       

The 1994 EP was an attempt to put all of these feelings into the music. It was also a bit of a reset after a lengthy trilogy – a process we began back in 2015. It’s not a change of direction, but rather a little nod to our roots -a little tip of that hat to what made us pick up instruments in the first place.  

If it has a precedent, I guess it would be The Manic Street Preachers’ Masses Against the Classes, a wonderfully noisy little gem that, for fans of the band who had maybe become a little lost during the Truth years, felt like a gift.

     

Both sonically and visually, this EP nods to those years spent rummaging around in record shops. It is both a reminder of the love I felt for music as a teenager and, in the process of recording, it also enabled me to fall in love with Final Coil all over again after a challenging few years. It reminded me – and I think Richard and Jola too – just why it is that we do this, with no expectations other than to make something that we all enjoyed.    

It was also a chance to play with something of a musical hero of ours. When I reached out to Graham Hopkins, it was because we had all (and me in particular) absolutely loved Semi Detached – a genuinely underrated gem in the Therapy? catalogue. A nervy, unique record, a good deal of its strengths lie in Graham’s off- kilter percussion and, when he agreed to play on the EP, I knew that we’d be making something special.    

A generous spirit, he brought something of himself to all four songs and, opening the files he sent, carried the same sense of anticipation as buying a new album – only this time it was our songs that were gaining new life!    

As with all releases, I hope there are people out there who would like to join us on this journey, but perhaps more than on any other release, this EP was for us, and it was a hell of a lot of fun to do.    

Track By Track    

1. Instant Fix:

I think this is the oldest song on the EP. It harks back to the period between Live with Doubt and Closed to The Light – a time when we were finding our proggy feet but still in thrall to the feedback-drenched rock that spawned us (come to think of it, we still are). I think that both this and Narcissist were slated for inclusion on Persistence of Memory but were left off in favour of a more ethereal, thoughtful approach. It was the right decision, but I always loved this song and grieved me that it never got its moment in the sun – especially as it always went over well live.    

Lyrically, it’s focused on our increasing social addiction to an incredibly damaging 24- hour news cycle. While the news was never strictly impartial (inevitably, everything will be filtered through some sort of lens), the shift to constant news has forced vendors to up the ante in order to maintain their viewership. Everything is presented in hysterical terms, and there is no doubt in my mind that the media, both here in the UK and in the US, has directly influenced the polarisation of society. This is particularly true in the artificial juxtaposition of good old days (that never existed) versus the “broken” society of today. This narrative is not only false but also actively dangerous, and it is precisely this jumbled terrain that allows charlatans like Nigel Farage to thrive.  

  

2. Narcissist:  

Another older track, Narcissist has barely changed musically since I wrote it, but the lyrics have changed considerably.  

Anyone who has ever experienced contact with a genuine narcissist (and yes, I’m aware that the term is now bandied about with abandon) will know that they are capable of manipulation without compassion, without empathy, and without guilt. It’s a dark song, but there is some catharsis, not least in the way the perspective shifts between verse 1 (more of what a narcissist does to others) and verse 2 (what they do to themselves). It can be hard to conceive when you’re dealing with a narcissist, but they do deserve compassion because, for all the damage they do, they also do a lot of harm to themselves one way or another. 

   

3. Playing Games: 

 

Musically, it started out as a sort of Smashing Pumpkins pastiche before evolving into its own thing. I have a few demos where I caught myself doing a (bad) Billy Corgan impersonation, but fortunately, I got over that!    

Lyrically, it’s a harder song to pin down, but I guess it’s a close cousin of Narcissist in many ways.   

 

4. Woke:

I have always kind of refrained from being too forthright about the band’s politics because, in many ways, I thought it was obvious from the conceptual thrust of the trilogy and the focus on compassion and discourse.   

 

However, with this one, I decided to throw caution to the wind and dig into one of the most divisive terms currently out there. I suspect it’ll raise a few hackles, but there comes a time when you kind of have to raise your head above the parapet, and it would seem like this is one of those times.    

Honestly, I still struggle to understand how the idea of having compassion and understanding for your fellow human beings could be divisive, but it seems like the term has been hijacked by extreme factions – the extreme right who are deliberately equating compassion and tolerance with weakness; and the extreme left, who threaten to shut down discourse that does not align with their own values. However, when you consider the motivations, it’s clear that those on the right (with all their spurious claims of free speech) are far more dangerous, for they don’t truly want free speech at all. They want speech free from consequences and we’re already seeing how hateful that can become... and how quickly.    

Anyhow, the song itself looks at how we try to laugh our way out of uncomfortable situations, trying not to challenge unpleasant discourse, even though we know we should; the language of othering (and, in particular, Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism); and lastly the idea that it’s up to us – we know we haven’t done much yet, but we can. It’s a song of hope and resistance, and I’m really proud of it.    

Musically, the song is a hybrid of the Manic Street Preachers (especially in the way it feels like there are too many words to fit the music) and Sonic Youth – it’s my love letter to both. And, of course, Nicky Wire is a huge Sonic Youth fan, so I guess it’s a nod to him in particular.

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