Easter Is Cancelled

Easter Is Cancelled, the sixth album, came out on Cooking Vinyl on 4 October 2019 (COOKCD736), with Big Nothing / Ultra-Vybe's Japanese edition released worldwide the same day (OTCD-6780). By the booklet's credits Dan Hawkins produced, engineered and mixed it at Hawkland Studios in Sussex, and Adam Ayan mastered it at Gateway Mastering. It is the band's first concept album: in Justin Hawkins's words a cycle of songs defining human existence through a parable, the slow death and glorious rebirth of rock and roll, brought full circle by the closing "We Are The Guitar Men" (Blabbermouth). Frankie Poullain said of the opening "Rock And Roll Deserves To Die" that rock had become so uniform that the cliché deserved killing off. The title came from the band's manager, who answered an Easter poem of Justin's with the words "Easter is cancelled"; until then "Rock And Roll Deserves To Die" had been in line as the album title (Songfacts). The title song was the last one written, after Dan and Rufus Taylor were set the task of coming up with a fast one. The cover, a what-if scene of Justin as Christ escaping the cross while the band fight off Roman soldiers, was refused by some platforms, and a censored version was made (Blabbermouth). The French monologue on "Deck Chair" is by Mel Vallance. The album reached number 10 in Britain and number 1 on the UK Rock & Metal Albums Chart. Justin had announced it as the band's last traditional album, but the next studio album, Motorheart, followed in 2021. The running order here is the original's as printed.