Let me tell you something about the Last Night Watchman. This isn’t some kid fresh out of music school trying to get clicks on TikTok. This is a guy who’s been around the block, played in a proper Birmingham indie band called The Noseflutes back in the day, recorded sessions for the BBC, and released a stack of EPs and LPs. Then he took a long break. Now he’s back with a new EP called “Old Blighty“, and it’s the kind of record that reminds you why songwriting matters in the first place.
The man behind Last Night Watchman is flying solo for the most part, but he’s not alone. He’s got his old mate John Horton—also known as Sven Vortex—on board. They were the main guitarists in The Noseflutes together, so they’ve got history. Horton brings lead guitar and keyboard work on the title track “Old Blighty” and the closer “Towards The Sun“, and he’s going to be on future releases too. You can feel it.
The EP has five tracks and runs about twenty-two minutes. It kicks off with the title cut, then moves through “Footprints“, “Get the Best Out of Life“, “Fool’s Prayer“, and finishes with “Towards The Sun“. That’s a proper arc. It takes you somewhere.
Now let’s get into what this thing is actually about, because the themes here are heavy. The artist says he’s been thinking a lot about time and mortality, the way you do when you get older and you start losing people. He’s also a history and science nerd, and it shows. He wrote “Old Blighty” after protesters in Bristol pulled down the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader. That’s not your average song topic. He’s staring straight at Britain’s colonial past, all the brutality and greed that built the empire, and he’s not flinching.
Then there’s “Footprints“. He wrote that one after reading about 900,000-year-old human footprints found in a Norfolk riverbed. He paired that with stuff he’d read about geology—the slow, constant shifting of mountains and seas over millions of years. That’s a wild thing to write a song about. But that’s what makes this record interesting. He’s taking big ideas and turning them into music instead of writing another breakup song.
Musically, this is not lo-fi bedroom pop. He set up a small studio in his house in Herefordshire, and he clearly knows what he’s doing. He overdubs guitars and vocals to get the impact he wants. He throws in banjo and ukulele. He uses keyboards and orchestral sounds. He layers multiple takes on chorus lines to build a big choir effect. That’s a real production approach. He’s not just hitting record and hoping for the best.
His influences make sense too. He name-checks Neil Young, Paul Simon, David Bowie, David Byrne, and Tom Waits. You can hear all of that in here. He loves the interplay between lyrics and music, the way a song can be a musical essay. And that’s what these songs feel like. They’re thoughtful. They’re crafted. They’re not in a hurry.
There’s a quote from Stephen Hawking he mentions: “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.” That’s the spirit of this whole thing. It’s looking outward. It’s asking big questions. It’s not wallowing.
The whole EP is a statement from a guy who’s been making music for decades and still has something to say. He’s just writing songs about the things that matter to him, and he’s doing it on his own terms. “Old Blighty” is smart, it’s personal, and it’s got real weight. If you’ve got any interest in music that makes you think, you need to give this a spin. This is what rock and roll looks like when it grows up and gets wise.