The Nightingales released a new record, an individually numbered limited edition double LP on green vinyl, in September 2023. “Live In Balsall Heath”, as the name would suggest, is the complete live show that the ‘Gales played in Birmingham when they were augmented by three guest musicians – sax god Terry Edwards and Brummie superstars the Nightingals.

“Live In Balsall Heath” – an effervescent, unpolluted and wonderful 18 song, 68 minute document of the 7 piece Nightingales at one of only four gigs the line up performed – was available only by mail order and at gigs and is now pretty much sold out.

A few weeks after the album’s release the group were pleased to embark on their first post pandemic tour of mainland Europe, featuring visits to Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Czechia. This Euro jaunt was followed in December by a long weekend of shows in Ireland.

The band’s most recent studio album “The Last Laugh” was released in October 2022. Recorded in Valencia in September 2021, the album contains 11 original songs and comes packaged in artwork by Fliss Kitson. Reviewers have described it as, “a rollocking, sardonic, sprawling, cuddly beast of a new album from Birmingham’s finest”, “a brilliant album”, “a masterpiece”, blah, blah.

“The Last Laugh” was the final release of Nightingales material in 2022. First up in February was “The New Nonsense”, a 12” EP featuring radical reworkings of tracks from the band’s last album “Four Against Fate” by top techno DJ Surgeon, the fantastic Go! Team and German wunderkind Randy Kuntz.

Next in March was the original soundtrack album of “King Rocker” – the documentary feature film about Robert Lloyd and the Nightingales, made by Stewart Lee and Michael Cumming – available on vinyl and also on CD included in the bookback DVD.

Continuing the series of unreleased material and reissues, which began in November 2019 with an extended double LP version of “No Love Lost”, the group’s second album “Hysterics” was released in April as a ‘deluxe’ double album and was followed in July by an expanded reissue of “In The Good Old Country Way”

The group toured Britain in the Spring of 2022 and followed the release of “The Last Laugh” with 4 sold out shows with the extended line up. In April 2023 they were chuffed to be ‘special guests’ of The Damned on their successful tour of most of the UK’s major cities.

In 2024 the Nightingales played the Rockaway Beach festival in January before their own headline Off The Beaten Track tour in May, featuring gigs in some smaller, less visited towns.

More news of live dates at home and abroad, possible theatrical screenings of “King Rocker” and further record releases will follow – as and when there is more certainty – over the coming months.