Lighthouse Family to play Birmingham

They've just dropped the "stirring" new single My Salvation as a teaser off forthcoming fourth record Blue Sky In Your Head out next month - their first new release in 18 years.

And one of the country's most successful chart stars of the late 90s and early 00s will be heading back out on tour in November, kicking off the adventure at Birmingham's Symphony Hall on November 11.

Blue Sky In Your Head is released on May 10 via Polydor Records. And in a nice touch to introduce newcomers to their timeless hits like Ocean's Drive, High, Lifted and Question Of Faith it will include Essential, a second disc of the classic songs remastered for the very first time to celebrate their 25-year recording history.

The duo - Tunde Baiyewu and Paul Tucker - have reunited with Polydor Records; Colin Barlow, the A&R that discovered them; and their first manager, Keith Armstrong; the same team that was around them when they were at their FM Radio-dominating peak.

“We’re trying to create something anthemic and uplifting but real,” the duo said. “That idea of: ‘I know the sun’s gonna shine again’, it’s quintessential Lighthouse Family.”

Tunde and Paul formed Lighthouse Family after meeting at Newcastle University in the early 90s. Their 1995 debut album Ocean Drive was a slow-burning success, going six-times platinum while staying in the album charts for almost three years. The single Lifted became inescapable on radio. The 1997 follow-up Postcards From Heaven featured three Top Ten singles – Raincloud, High and Lost in Space – and also went six-times platinum, charting across Europe, the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. It cemented their mainstays of the Ed Sheeran of their day, seemingly playing on every radio station simultaneously. Their third album, Whatever Gets You Through The Day in 2001, produced another Top Ten single in the shape of (I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be) Free/One, but after the subsequent world tour the duo went their separate ways, their friendship burnt out after years living in each others’ pockets.

By 2016 the pair were determined to make a new album in a north London studio, the old friends and collaborators quickly finding their groove.

A spokesperson said: "The result is an album that is classic Lighthouse Family, while also sounding like it could only be made today. Blue Sky In Your Head offers messages of hope and uplift. Songs of love and connection. Tunes to sing, loudly, from the heart. It can only be Lighthouse Family, back to dream up the magic all over again."

Lighthouse Family play at Symphony Hall on November 11. For tickets, click here.