Unquiet Nights is an outstanding rock band I’ve been following for nearly six years, ever since frontman Luke Mathers reached out to me about their superb single “Promise of You”, which I loved at first listen.  Originally started in 2006 as a solo project by Mathers, a talented singer-songwriter and guitarist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, with help by Rodger Firmin on drums, he began recording songs for what would become the first Unquiet Nights album 21st Century Redemption Songs. In 2010, Luke relocated to Italy, where he eventually finished and released the album.

He was later joined by Italian musicians Francesco Piciucchi on bass and keyboards, and drummer Matteo Bussotti for live shows, though Rodger still played drums on their recordings. In 2015 they released their beautiful and compelling second album Postcards in Real Time. One of the tracks from that album, “George Best City”, which was never released as a single but was used in the Federico Buffa Racconta documentary series, landed them several live national appearances on Italian TV stations. Their best known and most successful song, it’s now garnered more than 486,000 streams on Spotify alone. Mathers eventually moved back to Belfast in 2016, where he continues to record and release music with Firmin and Piciucchi as Unquiet Nights.

I’ve written about them three times over the past six years, most recently two years ago this month when I reviewed their excellent single “In Spite of It All”. The song was released in conjunction with, and included on, their compilation album First Ten (2012-2022), a sort of ‘greatest hits so far’ work commemorating the 10-year anniversary of their debut album 21st Century Redemption Songs. Now they’re back with a great new single “Diamond and the Missing Son“, their first new music in two years. The lead single of their forthcoming album Seasons in Exile, to be released on January 19th, the song (and album) was produced by Mathers, and mixed and mastered by Neal Calderwood, who’s also mixed and mastered all previous Unquiet Nights releases.

The song’s a bona fide rock gem, with a strong Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers vibe, courtesy of Mathers’ vibrant soaring guitars. His masterful guitar work never ceases to amaze me, and he doesn’t disappoint here as he delivers spine-tingling riffs that smolder and wail throughout. Meanwhile, Firmin deftly sets the driving rhythm with his muscular drumbeats that propel, but never overpower, the song. And as always, Mather’s vocals are equal parts commanding and pleasing, with just a hint of a rasp to convey the right amount of passion. It’s a marvelous introduction to what promises to be another stellar album by Unquiet Nights.

The song lyrics tell a tale of two characters who find themselves entwined with each other, serving as a kind of first chapter to a much bigger story involving a character named ‘Diamond’, who I’m guessing is a woman, and a man referred to as ‘The Missing Son’. Mathers provides some background to the premise: “Sometimes I force myself to try and write songs that aren’t directly about myself, and to just approach the song like it would be a movie. The back story of these two characters isn’t fully expanded on in ‘Diamond And The Missing Son’ itself, because of the limitations of a three minute single, so I thought if we were going to release it that I would challenge myself to write the whole third album from the point of view of these two characters. This is what our new album ‘Seasons In Exile’ turned into, which was a useful experiment because I’ve ended up getting a lot of songs that definitely wouldn’t have existed without the continuity. The funny thing is that when someone thinks they’re writing fiction, they usually discover it’s the most honest they’ve ever written about themselves. This seems to have happened here.”

Tonight we roll the dice
If just to stop and pray for paradise to come through
Straight in to the dark
Straight into something looking for the spark that we knew

No thinking of tomorrow
We only got today

You are the only thing that keeps me hanging on
And on and on
There’s nothing else could ever come between us ’cause we are
The diamond and the missing son

Diamond, you should know
Nothing and no one makes me feel anything like you do
For all the things you show
There’s always something that leaves we wondering and blind and confused

No thinking of tomorrow
We only got today

You are the only thing that keeps me hanging on
And on and on
There’s nothing else could ever come between us ’cause we are
The diamond and the missing son

I generally prefer music videos that show the musicians or bands performing their song, so the video for ‘Diamond and the Missing Son” is right up my alley. Filmed in black and white, it shows Mathers and Firmin working their musical magic, while the in-house cat makes its rounds, seeming to express approval of the proceedings.

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Stream their music on Spotify / Apple Music/ Soundcloud 
Purchase on Bandcamp / Unquiet Nights Online Store