Yesterday the most incredible thing happened

First contact? The brokering of global peace? An end to plague and pestilence?

It’s a sad fact of the natural kingdom that many of the best animals only live for a very short period of time. Hamsters? Three years. Guinea pigs? Four to five. Domestic hedgehogs? Six, if you’re very lucky and don’t live next to a motorway. The Research, from Wakefield - and a band I can often make the argument for being the finest indie pop group of the curious musical decade that was the noughties - only lived for eight, releasing a perfect debut album (2006’s Breaking Up) and a good one (2008’s The Old Terminal) before being committed, unceremoniously, to the pet cemetery.

But wait? What’s this scratching coming from beneath the soil? It’s… oh my days… it’s The Research, rising from the dead yesterday to announcing their coming appearance at the last ever Long Division Festival this coming June. And there’s new music too? Good lord, I’m going to have to have to have a lie down. After having a conversation with them for the podcast, of course (it’ll be up in audio form next week, you should subscribe!), which you can watch the video from above.

‘Some things should stay dead’, wrote Stephen King in 1983’s Pet Sematary. And yet, as anyone who follows that man on Twitter will know, Stephen King is routinely wrong about many, many things. Rejoice indie pop fans! Great days are upon us!

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