In the three years after the release of their debut, Blackpool post-rockers Blanket have undergone a transformation thanks to a new line-up, new energy and some fresh ideas. Their second album, Modern Escapism, takes listeners on a sonic journey with some unexpected twists. Prog catches up with vocalists/guitarists Bobby Pook and Simon Morgan to discover why the band consider themselves to be the best they’ve ever been.

Words: Alex Lynham Images: Jodie Guest

L-R: Bobby Pook, Simon Morgan, Aiden Baldwin and Matthew Sheldon.

Blackpool post-rockers Blanket have smashed through their difficult second album, Modern Escapism. There were challenges, yes, but they came from an unexpected angle. Not inter-band politics, nor the pandemic, but writing too much material. According to guitarists and vocalists Simon Morgan and Bobby Pook, they wrote more than 40 songs in total for the new album. The problem wasn’t writer’s block, but deciding where to take the band next.

“What is a Blanket song? Fuck it!” says Pook, recalling their change in tack.

Morgan adds with a laugh, “There were riffs that Bob played, and it was almost like we found it funny because it was so heavy.”

As they tell it, they were close to 20 songs in before they realised that they weren’t writing the flowing, conceptual piece that they had envisioned as the follow-up to 2018’s How To Let Go. Morgan remains adamant that the band shouldn’t be pigeonholed by genre: “I don’t think we were ever post-rock enough to be just a post-rock band.” But sonically they had a clear idea of just how far they wanted to push the band’s sound. As a result, they ditched what they’d done and dived headfirst into fleshing out the heavier song ideas.