Excuses for Travellers

With the band returning to London to work and live at the famed Fortress studios, Excuses for Travellers was the first of two consecutive albums recorded with the help of friend and electronic artist Mark Van Hoen.

Combining the melancholy and stripped-down intimacy of Ask Me Tomorrow and the Laurel Canyon soul of Out of Tune, it finds the band refining their touch to create a more cohesive record that rightfully sits at the middle of their ever-morphing sound.

“With Out of Tune I was sort of obsessing a little too much over Bob Dylan and Neil Young,” says Neil, “whereas on Excuses for Travellers the influences had been absorbed a little more, and the band made it into its own thing. Mark’s production really helped as well.”

Lusciously textured with restrained guitar, drums, pedal steel, horns, and piano, it’s an introspective campfire record that lets Neil’s voice and songwriting take centre stage (“In Love with a View,” “My Life in Art,” “She Broke You So Softly”), while also featuring the only two Mojave tracks solely credited to Rachel (“Bringin’ Me Home”) and Ian (“Got My Sunshine”).

Reflecting on his growth as a songwriter, Neil says, “Unlike Slowdive, where the music is at the forefront and nobody is focusing on what anyone's saying, you couldn’t really hide the lyrics with Mojave 3. I had to think about them more, work harder on them.”