After a long wait since their last album in 2016, I Like Trains made a triumphant return to the UKs alternative scene with their 2020 album ‘KOMPROMAT’.
‘The Shallows’ was about how the internet is rewriting the world, ‘KOMPROMAT’ is something far more terrifying. “We didn’t set out to write a record about current affairs,” frontman David Martin says. “But the path we set out on converged drastically with that daily discourse. The album inadvertently became about populist politics across the world. Brexit, Trump, Cambridge Analytica and covert Russian influence ended up at the centre of it all”.
The album is bookended with similar John Carpenter/Stranger Things motifs to how ‘KOMPROMAT’ opened. It isn’t a round, like Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’, but ‘Eyes To The Left’ and ‘A Steady Hand’ do flow into each. This gives the listener a feeling of completion. The album has gone full circle.
‘KOMPROMAT’ is an album that cements I LIKE TRAINS once more not only as a force to be reckoned with but as a band who are able to deliver a delicate critique on society.
I Like Trains will make their return to the stage in December 2022, including a headline show at Thekla on the 12th.
