ABSENTEE

Born to the sounds of Barry Manillow and The Carpenters, raised on romantic comedies, and schooled in failed love and misfiring lust… Absentee emerge well-versed in the rigours of romance with their finest album to date, Victory Shorts.
Finding a seat somewhere between unreachable romanticism and hopeless realism, Victory Shorts offers lush mini romantic tragedies for those who thought Casablanca ended a little too abruptly. Album opener 'Shared' sets the scene with a couple pleased as punch that they found each other, until things take a darker turn with Absentee smashing their way through 'Boy, Did She Teach You Nothing?' latest EP title-track 'Bitchstealer' and 'Love Has Had Its Way' in an attempt to get to the truth of the matter: Happy endings don't come easy.
'The Nurses Don't Notice a Thing' takes us on a walk with someone looking for hope in a maternity wing: "our eyes meeting as your waters break and I'm born again as him or her," meditating on the beauty of innocence as: "the simplest feelings of love explode into the room like cowboys in saloons, I want to clap but it seems inappropriate." In 'We Smash Plates' the lovers' first argument and consequent makeup is summed up in a mess of broken crockery: "I ask you kindly to take a seat whilst I'm sweeping broken china from around your feet, like a miner bringing riches from the core... we both smile knowing there will always be more".
By album closer 'That Old Ghost', we're left contemplating a lovers' grip: "the way that you hold me, it won't be my heart that breaks first" and the enduring qualities of love found the hard way: "you don't have to ask me if you want me to stay... I'm not a bird, I'm not a whore... you can just clap your hands and make me run away".
Marked with the influence of Johnny Cash, Pavement and The Velvet Underground, produced/engineered/mixed by Nick Terry (Klaxons, Libertines, Bernard Butler), and shot through with the originality and humour we've come to expect from Absentee, Victory Shorts stands alone as the band's strongest, most honest record yet.

Victory Shorts - 22 Sept 2008 (UK release date)

Shared
Boy, Did She Teach You Nothing?
The Nurses Don't Notice A Thing
They Do It These Days
Love Has Had It's Way
Bitchstealer
We Smash Plates
Spitting Feathers
Pips
That Old Ghost

BITCHSTEALER - 9 June 2008

Bitchstealer
I'm Your Man
My Eyes Adored You
That Old Ghost

Watch the video to Bitchstealer here:

SCHMOTIME - 8 MAY 2006

1. More Troubles
2. We Should Never Have Children
3. Getaway
4. Hey Tramp
5. You Try Sober
6. There's a Body in Car Somewhere
7. Weasel
8. Truth is Stranger than Fishin'
9. Duck Train
10. Something To Bang
11. Treacle

SOMETHING TO BANG - Released 27 Feb 2006

Its a brand new version of Something To Bang backed with a brand new song You Try Sober. Its on 7" and CD single as well as digital. Artwork by big baby Babs. The single has already recieved play from Zane Lowe on Radio 1, Jonthan Ross on Radio 2 and is A listed on BBC 6 Music

Here's the video: SOMETHING TO BANG VIDEO

1. Something To Bang
2. You Try Sober

WEASEL - Released 31 October 2005

Two brand new tracks from the boys and girls of Absentee on limited edition 7". Comes with a free sticker of a semi naked lady and a besuited bear courtesty of Babs, Absentee's hairsuit guitarist. Listen to Weasel by clicking on it below.
A. Weasel
B. Les Mesaventures Sexualle

DONKEY STOCK - Released 4 July 2005

1. Rainy Days Swimming
2. Something to Bang
3. My Dead Wife
4. In the Toilets Again
5. On the Hallway
6. Heather's Golden Shoulder

BUY DONKEY STOCK FROM ITUNES

Press

"fabulous songs, streaked through with dark humour and drunken warmth...perhaps the best of the new London hopefuls". Record Collector
"wonderful, sordidly warm alt rok" Rocksound
"Absentee's very existence makes the world a better place" NME 9/10
"Gallows funny with instantly memorable songs" Observer
"Entertaining and melodic - Absentee have to be applauded" **** The Times
"Brilliant, a man sized portion of rock and roll" Artrocker
"Like Lou Reed with grubbier fingerprints. Very promising" **** Q
"Neat, soulful Indie-pop" Music Week

Upcoming Touring

04 Jul 2008, OXFORD ZODIAC Midlands
05 Jul 2008, CORNBURY FESTIVAL, OXFORD,
06 Jul 2008, NOTTINGHAM BODEGA Northeast
11 Jul 2008, LIVERPOOL ACADEMY2 Midlands
13 Jul 2008, CARDIFF IFOR BACH Wales
16 Jul 2008, BUSH HALL,LONDON, with micah P Hinson
17 Jul 2008, BRIGHTON AUDIO
19 Jul 2008, GLASGOW KING TUTS .., Scotland
25 Jul 2008, SECRET GARDEN PARTY, HUNTINGDON
29 Aug 2008, ELECTRIC PICNIC, IRELAND
12 Sep 2008, END OF THE ROAD, LARMA TREE GARDENS

Old Touring

Aug 22 - independence, sunderland
Sep 10 - Bestival Isle of Wight
Sep 12 - Borderline London
Sep 16 - End of the Road Festival
Oct 1 - Moshulu, Aberdeen
Oct 2 - Oran Mor, Glasgow
Oct 3 - Acadamy2, Newcastle
Oct 4 - Fleece, Bristol
Oct 5 - Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Oct 7 - Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Oct 8 - Barfly, Birmingham
Oct 9 - Academy 3, Manchester
Oct 10 - Scala, London
Oct 12 - Scala, London
Oct 13 - Bierkeller, Manchester
Oct 14 - Social, Nottingham
Oct 15 - Faversham, Leeds
10 Jun 2008, HOXTON BAR AND GRILL, LONDON

Check Absentee out doing an acoustic set for the BBC at the Green Man Festival