Stone returns with second album "Autonomy "
Ever since their rapid rise in the depths of lockdown, Liverpool’s STONE have thrived best when leaning into the chaos. Having further sealed themselves as a vital force on the global punk scene with their 2024 debut album ‘Fear Life For A Lifetime’, the band are back with a follow-up that’s loaded with their most reflective and bruising work to date
Ever since their rapid rise in the depths of lockdown, Liverpool’s STONE have thrived best when leaning into the chaos. Having further sealed themselves as a vital force on the global punk scene with their 2024 debut album ‘Fear Life For A Lifetime’, the band are back with a follow-up that’s loaded with their most reflective and bruising work to date.
‘AUTONOMY’ comes as a fierce testament to the band’s resilience, fighting spirit and togetherness. Having publicly come to an end of their major label agreement earlier in the year, this is the sound of friends settling old scores while learning to have fun again. Discussing that sense of freedom behind the material, frontman Fin Power says the band were determined to finally put the industry bullshit to one side and make the album they wanted.
“If you look at a lot of the great bands and the ones who made it to the very top, they’re the ones who don't just crumble under adversity,” he explains. “This time around we really had the time and space to refine the material and go through a proper process. There was no pressure to write what other people thought were hits, but we did push ourselves and step it up. We had the opportunity to sit in a room and refine our work without any external voices.”
That sense of togetherness and cohesion is writ-large across ‘AUTONOMY’ - an album that sees Power at his most introspective and vulnerable, while sonically maintaining the scuzzy powerhouse sound that’s seen the band hold down mainstage status across Europe. A perfect taster of this balance comes with the thrilling single ‘MONKEY SEE MONKEY DO’, a grunge epic packing the chest-out swagger and attitude of peak Britpop.
Drummer Alex Smith says the band felt renewed and recharged heading into the process. “Things just got a bit heavy with the success and we really found our friendship again and fell in love with the music again. What you hear in the second album is us being able to throw ideas at the wall again. It’s recorded live and I think you can really hear us having fun again."
Speaking on the album’s central themes, Power says the record tells a story of a period in his life. “On the first album, there was the fear of wanting to make it in a band whereas this album is a chapter where I talk about the addiction of the come up, the success that you face and then the comedown of it all, going through love and partying and everything else that comes with it.”
While ‘AUTONOMY’ is a more grown-up version of STONE, there’s still a clarity and brutal decisiveness at play. Power says there was an inner-battle throughout the writing process. “I do miss that ferocious beast that I was, there was that real anger and that ‘fuck you’ energy. I think there was a part of unlocking that on this album and letting the handbrake off. With all the label stuff, I think I found that again.”
He says the album's narrative helped him deliver some of his most personal lyrics to date. “There’s very much a storyline about almost losing everything in my life due to success at a young age and being able to live as a full time musician but then getting addicted to drugs and alcohol then quitting them all. Then there’s the comedown, the fallout and rebirth.”
Largely recorded on home soil at Liverpool’s Whitewood Studios and produced by Rob Whiteley (The Night Cafe, The Wombats, Courting), aside from ‘Hope Ain’t Gone’ which was produced by Rich Costey (Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, Muse) sonically, the album delivers some of their heaviest, hard-hitting works so far.
Power says, “When I was writing the album I was listening to quite a lot of leftfield music but through the recording process I was listening to all of this heavy, fuck-off music like Limp Bizkit, Korn, Rage Against The Machine and Knocked Loose. That really helped because I wanted to bridge the gap between British indie and hardcore or West Coast metal.”
You only need to see the album’s cover, with Power captured in freeze-frame being held aloft by an adoring crowd to see just how crucial that live connection is to them, something only proved by a recent run of secret gigs and DIY house shows. Despite keeping things intimate, there’s no denying the band are scaling up their live presence.
Accolades to date include recent mainstage performances on Rock Werchter and Pukkelpop along with support runs with Yungblud, Inhaler, The Wombats, The Kooks and DMA’s. Heading into next spring, the band will perform their biggest ever headline show at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels.
“We’ve built such a live fanbase and people show up everywhere we go,” says Power. “There’s a culture around STONE which is as big as the music. We were built on chaos and that’s what made it all so exciting. We were those kids having a laugh setting fireworks off at each other in the park. It all happens so quickly but we all really trust each other, we’re good friends and we’re a team. It’s about trusting each other and having fun again. Things will go back to their natural form, untamed and unasked. I like chasing the chaos and weirdness.”
Still vital outliers forging their own pathway, STONE aren’t concerned with the wider scene. “We’re like a nomad band. We can’t sit with the arty post-punk bands because we aren’t them, we can’t sit with the hardcore bands because we’re not hardcore purists, but what we’ve tried to do is genuinely genre-busted and we’ve got our own vibe going on. We’re so proud of it, it’s always been sink or swim but we’ll never give up. We’re doing whatever the fuck we want, there’s no red tape here. That’s where STONE thrives.”
