Press room

Lloyd Cole & Band 

Lloyd Cole will take to the Barbican Hall in January 2025, joined by a full band featuring founding members of The Commotions, Blair Cowan and Neil Clark, and drummer Signy Jakobsdottir. The performance will run the gamut from his masterful debut with the Commotions ‘Rattlesnakes’ right up to last year’s acclaimed On Pain touching on all points in between.

Cole says: “After many wonderful years in Gothic Islington I’m thrilled to finally bring my music to brutalist EC2. The concert hall’s acoustics should be perfect for our sound.”

Last summer Lloyd Cole released On Pain, his twelfth album as a solo artist. He has released 17 studio albums including three with The Commotions [Rattlesnakes (84), Easy Pieces (’85), Mainstream (’87)] twelve solo albums [Lloyd Cole (’90), Don’t Get Weird On Me Babe (’91), Bad Vibes (’93), Love Story (95), Plastic Wood (’01), Music In A Foreign Language (’03), ‘Anti Depressant’ (’06), Broken Record (’10), Standards (’13), 1D (’15), Guesswork (’19), On Pain (’23)], one with The Negatives [The Negatives (2000)] and one with Hans Joachim Roedelius  [Selected Studies Vol. 1 (’13)].

Praise for Cole's 2023 album On Pain: 

“Ghostly electronica accompanies meditations on loss, mortality and the passage of time on Cole’s absorbing new album.” 4* Sunday Times

“Grappling with the ineffable…a richly detailed synth-pop LP of admirable sophistication…it’s Cole’s growing sound design expertise – and ever unique lyrical voice – that ensure his 40-year career still has legs.” 4* MOJO

“’A storied songwriter comes of age (again)… He too has become more of what he always was. And somehow he’s achieved that by paring his music down to its rawest essence.” 8/10 Uncut

“…beautiful and special, the kind of minimalist adventure we hoped Mark Hollis would return with one day, only with added tales of bloodthirsty wolves and drug-addled rockers...Cole is on a roll. He’s still making erudite melodies, but now there’s something new and other to them. At 62, ‘On Pain’ is the sound of a man just getting started.” 8/10 Classic Pop

Produced by the Barbican

Find out more