At the end of 2022, Casey broke their self-imposed exile from the music industry and returned with two stunning new songs. It had been about four years since the Welsh five-piece had called it a day, but ‘Great Grief’ and ‘Atone’ showed that none of their passion or intensity had been diluted. They offered a reintroduction to Casey, and the response to them was, predictably, overwhelmingly positive. And so, just about a year after the band’s reunion, Casey released their third full-length album, aptly titled How To Disappear, in January ‘24. It’s a record that many people – members of the band included – never thought would ever get made. And while its 12 phenomenal songs certainly match the incredibly high standards of the band’s back catalogue, this is also Casey Mark II, a band solidified by their many previous years of close friendship, and buoyed by once more doing what they love together. The result is the band’s most accomplished album to date – one that thrives on the chemistry that was present between the five members even when they formed in 2014. As ever, these Casey songs don’t just replicate the feelings that inspired them, they embody them. They become them. They’re not about those emotions, they are those emotions, brought to life by the precision crafting of the band. At the heart of the record is vocalist Tom Weaver’s lyrics. While previously he’s been incredibly candid with his lyrics, drawing from intensely personal experiences about both his life and his ill health, on this album he wrestles with something more abstract and intangible – the notion of absence. While death is an ominous presence on this record, it’s not morbid in the slightest. Rather, the intention was to transform the default emotions we feel about death from sadness into something more positive and hopeful. In January of ‘24 Casey celebrated the release of How To Disappear while travelling across America on tour with Holding Absence, embraci