Late Night Triple Bill is an ode to the band’s love of film. In the summer of lockdown one, the guys missed the cinema almost as much as they missed gigging -- frontman Tim filled his days with a string of movies he’d had on the shelf for a couple of years, an acoustic guitar close to hand. The resulting 3-song EP features a longer ‘director’s cut’ of fan favourite “Star-Strangled Hanna”, the scorching single “Fuel on the Fire” -- born from the ashes of a 23-year-old demo by Tim’s uncle Jon -- and its understated acoustic prequel, “Juniper”. Together, these songs explore the dark and violent side of Americana in a succinct, violent, witty Triple Bill. The EP is a guitar-centric departure from the band’s signature piano-led sound, with its quintessentially post-punk-revival opener, followed by a country ballad, culminating in the marriage of the two in “Fuel On The Fire”. Late Night Triple Bill signifies a mature concept-driven development in Ali In The Jungle’s output, and an exciting flavour of what is to come.

The main single “Star-Strangled Hanna” has in its title a warped pun on the US national anthem, and the song’s lyrics explore the nastier side of glitzy Hollywood. Cinema has always been a huge source of inspiration for Ali In The Jungle’s music -- the band thinks it’s important to give a song about Hollywood its roots in British music, since the UK can’t ignore the prejudices of its own film industry. While the rest of the Late Night Triple Bill EP shares the US influence in its country and Americana-inspired guitar work, atmosphere, and vocals, the music in “Star-Strangled Hanna” itself feels intensely British, evoking the post-punk revival and indie music of The Housemartins, Franz Ferdinand, and Arctic Monkeys. By contrast, the EP’s middle track, “Juniper”, is a mini palate-cleansing ballad written in about half an hour during a lush summer’s evening in the first lockdown. The band consciously went for a stripped-back instrumentation, inspired by some of The Beatles’ more personal songs like “Blackbird”. To cap it all off, “Fuel on the Fire” is an incendiary single with its roots in a demo written by Tim’s uncle Jon more than 2 decades ago. Tim was awed by the transcendently simple and effortlessly cool atmosphere of the cassette tape, and transformed it into this punchy track which melds unusual guitar and drum styles to create something captivatingly cool.

The band recognises that the themes of violence and abuse explored in the new EP are severe issues which need addressing, and would like to promote White Ribbon UK as a charity which engages with men and boys to end violence against women: www.whiteribbon.org.uk