New Street Adventure - Stubborn Sons (Deluxe Edition) (2017)

British soul band New Street Adventure formed while founding member Nick Corbin was still attending university in 2007. Corbin named his band after the New Street railway station in Birmingham. The group began life as a trio, featuring Corbin on guitar and vocals, Chris Daykin on drums, and Robin Langhorn on bass. They recorded their first EP, An Excuse to Talk, at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, and quickly followed that recording with the Who Beat Up Jimmy Jazz? EP. During the band's early years, Corbin's lyrics were influenced by the class divide he witnessed among his fellow students. Around this period in New Street Adventure's career, Daykin was replaced on drums by Ros Robertson.

Following a move to London, Corbin would yet again reshuffle the ever-evolving lineup. Ashley Hayden joined on bass, and producer Noel McKoy recruited Ernie McKone (bass), Carl Hudson (keyboards), Paul Jordanous (trumpet), and Tom White (trombone) to play on the band's Just the Kind of People EP. The Say It Like You Mean It EP, whose single received extensive radio play on BBC London, was released in 2012. The band toured the EP with Corbin's sister Cicely taking up backing vocal duties, and jazz pianist Charlie Myers also joined the tour. In 2013 New Street Adventure signed to the Acid Jazz label, and began recording their debut long-player. However, the recording of No Hard Feelings was plagued by unsatisfactory results, which resulted in them working on it for over six months.

Help came in the form of a remix of their song "On Our Front Doorstep" by Mitch Ayling. Corbin was so impressed by the direction Ayling took with the track that he asked him to mix the entire album, which was then released in 2014. For their follow-up, the band's lineup was revised yet again, slimmed down to Ashley Hayden (bass/backing vocals), Ben Wolfe (drums), Max De Lucia (keyboards/backing vocals), and Billy Farr (guitar/backing vocals) in addition to founding member Corbin. The album was recorded in just seven days at Woods Lodge Studios in Essex. Stubborn Sons appeared in 2017, and although Corbin acknowledged that his perspective had changed since recording began (the album featured some songs dating back to his university days), they continued to broach sociopolitical issues in their music. © Bekki Bemrose