Well the name may say honour before glory but this is a glorious set of stuff from the fabled Whiskas. It has taken quite a time, around four years since the demise of the wonderful Forward Russia, but at last we have This is Broken Lines – it can (and should) be purchased in its various forms and bundles through the Bandcamp site. The ten tracks are the result of ‘messing around’ and adjusting to no longer being within the structure of a band. A while ago German audiences got to hear some early, acoustic, versions of a some tracks when Whiskas played a couple of shows there, and there was a resulting three track EP comprising Broken Bottles Empty Hearts, Lions  and sleeping/Dreaming (which didn’t make it to the album), there has also been the odd one two shows back home, but apart from that the faithful have had to hold on rather.

Of course throughout is Whiskas trade mark guitar sound, so redolent of those long lost Forward Russia shows, but this is no re-make of former times. In truth its hard to categorise the sound of Honour Before Glory and so I won’t bother. But there is a surprising and welcome variety in here – the sumptuous and dreamy like Shadow Into and the opener Monochrome in Sunshine, the warm blanket of synth that is the wonderful Maison, the almost poptabulous Lions and Broken Bottles and the triumphant swagger of Breaker.

All the songs here were written by Whiskas who played everything with the exception of drums (Simon Fogal), violin (Hannah Want) and the additional vocals (a slew of chums but including the talented Sam Airey who is himself worthy of investigation via his FB page, website, Bandcamp or Soundcloud spaces). Should the artwork intrigue then check out Fran Rogers on her web site.

If truth be told it has been a bit of a wait but well worth it now that This is Broken Lines has arrived – the download can be made now whilst artefacts will be mailed out in October. Do yourself a favour (and Senor Whiskas also) grab the download and order the ‘real’ thing for later. All we need now is the promise of a few dates to hear this all live…..