Lucia & The Best Boys to release debut album Burning Castles

Glasgow’s Lucia & The Best Boys has released her long awaited debut album, Burning Castles. A synth-laden soundscape spanning dark themes and difficult emotions, the record is available to buy and stream now.

Lucia will celebrate the release with a string of in-store performances, beginning on 1st October at Assai Records stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh, before visiting Dundee, Liverpool and the iconic Banquet Records in Kingston-Upon-Thames.

The intimate run precedes a full UK headline tour in November, including performances at London’s Lafayette and Glasgow’s SWG3 - see below for full dates.

With the album comes a new single, ‘Care’ - a song she was writing for a friend amidst a toxic relationship. Brought to fruition on a long drive to the Isle of Skye, Lucia realised she was also writing the song for herself. She explains: “I feel like there was a lot of naivety when I was younger and I didn’t realise how toxic one of my relationships actually was until I started reflecting on it.

“I started thinking about this particular time a lot whilst writing care and really started to embody these emotions all over again and although that was quite a strange thing to experience. I think writing it gave me a lot of closure.”

Burning Castles is the debut album that Lucia has been eager to make. With themes that span womanhood (“Love Yourself, “Waiting On You”), misogyny in the music industry (“When You Dress Up”), and the emotional whiplash of unhealthy love (“So Sweet I Could Die”, “Haunt You Back” “Care”), the album unfurls like a secret diary reimagined with the benefit of hindsight and experience.

“This album has been bubbling under the surface for a long time,” Lucia explains. “It’s a build up of everything that I’ve experienced as a woman over the past seven years… Some of which I’ve written about in the past, but now I’m older, have a completely different, clearer understanding of and want to reword or rephrase. It’s also about the confidence that I’ve found over that time.”

Borne out of Glasgow’s underground punk scene, Lucia & the Best Boys’ debut EPs Cheap Talk, Eternity and the State of Things saw her quickly garner praise from the likes of NME, DIY and Clash, with multiple plays on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6, plus UK tours with Dream Wife and Wolf Alice.

Returning in 2023 with news of her debut album, the first half of the year has already seen her solidified as one of Scotland’s most exciting new artists; her captivating persona and sharp, intellectual songwriting fast becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Lucia also has an impressive fashion and modelling background, having worked with everyone from Alexander McQueen and Valentino to Charles Jeffery. For Lucia, this has only fuelled the band’s creative, experimental and hands-on spirit, with the two worlds frequently colliding. “I’ve realised that taking everything I love and genuinely care about and combining it into the world of the album is what’s going to make it the most unique and honest,” she says.

You can find the album here.

Burning Castles - Tracklisting:

1 - Butterflies

2 - When You Dress Up

3 - So Sweet I Could Die

4 - Angels Cry Too

5 - Care

6 - Love Yourself

7 - Burning Castles

8 - Hurt Somebody You Love

9 - Haunt You Back

10 - Waiting On You Now

11 - Favourite Thing To Lose

2023 Live Dates:

1st October, 12pm - Assai, Glasgow (In-Store Performance)

1st October, 4pm - Assai, Edinburgh (In-Store Performance)

2nd October, 7pm - Assai, Dundee (In-Store Performance)

4th October - Jacaranda, Liverpool (In-Store Performance)

5th October - Banquet Records, Kingston-Upon-Thames (In-Store Performance)

13th November - Dublin - The Grand Social

14th November - Manchester - YES Pink Room (Venue upgrade)

16th November - Nottingham - The Bodega

17th November - Bristol - The Exchange

21st November - London - Lafayette

22nd November - Leeds - Hyde park Book Club

23rd November - Glasgow - SWG3