Rainbow Skull release their second self-titled long-player of the year, to be referred to as ‘Rainbow Skull II’.

Available as a Bandcamp download, the 12 tracks follow an EP from June, ‘The Resonance Session‘.

The prolific trio are based in Stourbridge, in England’s West Midlands, but with one member being Alex Botten – who was based in Dundee for the main part of his musical career, and has recorded dozens of releases with various acts and under solo monikers including Magnetic North Pole, Maps of Jupiter, Thee Moths / Thee Alex, Lipsick!, Bikeshed, Kosmische and Sandhopper.

The new album was written and recorded during the lockdown of 2020 – aside from a new version of Magnetic North Pole’s ‘December 1995’.

The trio also consist of Geoff Scott, and Jon Davies, the most recent arrival, replacing founder member Stuart Tonks. Songwriting on the new release is roughly split between the three members, with instrumentation also being on something of a rotational basis.

“We’d released our first album just before everything went a bit wonky with the world and hadn’t intended to follow it up quite so soon…” the band say of the record’s early arrival.

‘Rainbow Skull’ follows a self-titled debut long-player from January, and was recorded by the band at home, apart from the drums, completed at Claptrap19 in Stourbridge.

The band also explain the confusing repeated titles of their first two long-players: “You have permission to call it ‘Rainbow Skull II’, and the cover is a clue to that as it evokes/straight up rips-off the sleeve of ‘Peter Gabriel II’”

More at www.facebook.com/rainbowskullband.