Decades in the Making, The Resurrection Club Release Debut Album “Survival”

Emerging from the long shadow of their late-70s beginnings, The Resurrection Club arrive with a debut that feels anything but tentative. “Survival”, is the sound of unfinished business reclaimed — a record born from distance, memory, and the kind of friendship that refuses to erode with time.

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Survival

The story stretches back to Glasgow in 1979, when three school friends formed The Plastic Flies and carved out a modest but meaningful presence on the Scottish post-punk circuit. Morris Fraser’s musicianship, Mike Paterson’s guitar work, and Martin McLeish’s magnetic presence at the mic carried them through touring and national radio play before diverging ambitions scattered them across continents. On January 20th 1983, they saw each other in person for the last time.

More than three decades later, contact was reestablished. Fraser had built a home studio in Edinburgh. Paterson remained active in Melbourne. McLeish, now in Barcelona, returned to lyric writing with renewed purpose. What followed wasn’t a nostalgic reunion but a reinvention. Recording remotely between Scotland, Spain, and Australia — and still not physically reunited — they began constructing something new. The Resurrection Club became both a name and a mission: resurrection of friendship, of creativity, of unfinished conversations.

“Survival”, recorded in part at Sol de Sants Studios and shaped alongside producer/DJ Robin Twelftree (whose résumé includes work with The Prodigy), captures that history without being trapped by it. While its DNA traces back to Glasgow’s post-punk pulse, the album expands outward, threading shimmering guitar textures through ambient electronics and understated rhythmic tension. It feels analog in emotion yet global in execution — intimate but expansive.

Thematically, the record confronts modern anxieties head-on: war, climate collapse, alienation, and emotional fatigue. Yet it never wallows. Instead, it holds space for vulnerability without surrendering to despair. There is weight here, but also resilience — a quiet insistence on connection as a form of defiance.

“We survived,” McLeish reflects. “Some songs were hard to even sing. There were tears in the studio, but also laughter. That’s what survival sounds like.” That tension — fragility intertwined with endurance — animates the album from start to finish.

Rather than dissecting each track individually, it’s more accurate to view, “Survival”, as a continuous arc. Songs flow like dispatches from different emotional climates, bound by atmosphere and intent. “Emergency”, confronts ecological dread with the stark admission “we have no plan B,” while “Survival, Pt. 1”, pushes forward with the steady declaration “I’m not giving up.” The closing ‘Survival, Pt. 2’ softens into something almost meditative, circling the phrase, “I’m still breathing”, as both confession and affirmation.

The emotional centerpiece, however, is focus track, “Every Second Counts”. Anchored by spacious instrumentation and a patient build, it crystallizes the album’s central anxiety: disconnection in an overconnected world, lands with particular force, not as accusation but as weary observation. Yet even here, the band resists cynicism. The track’s gradual swell suggests that being unheard is not the same as being alone. 

What stands out most across, “Survival”, is restraint. The Resurrection Club avoid overproduction or grand gestures. Guitars shimmer rather than dominate; electronic textures hover instead of overwhelm. The performances feel lived-in, shaped by experience rather than urgency to impress. There’s confidence in letting space speak.

The long-distance recording process contributes to the album’s atmosphere. You can sense the exchange of ideas across time zones — fragments sent back and forth until they cohere. Instead of sounding fragmented, though, the record feels deliberate and cohesive. The separation becomes part of its character, reinforcing its themes of isolation and reconnection.

Importantly, “Survival”, positions itself as “human made music for an algorithmic age.” Created without AI, with deliberate care and emotional transparency, it stands as a quiet rebuttal to disposability. Sincerity becomes a statement. In an era that often rewards immediacy and surface-level engagement, The Resurrection Club lean into patience and depth.

There’s also something powerful about artists returning not to relive youth but to process what came after it. These songs aren’t attempts to recreate 1981; they reflect 2026 — its uncertainties, its fractured landscapes, its need for empathy. The band’s history informs the music, but it doesn’t define its boundaries.

As a debut, “Survival”, feels remarkably assured. As a reunion, it feels necessary. It’s less about nostalgia and more about continuity — proof that creative bonds can persist even when geography intervenes. The record doesn’t promise easy answers to the crises it addresses. Instead, it offers presence, acknowledgment, and persistence.

In the end, “Survival”, isn’t just about having endured. It’s about choosing to keep going — together.