Tear the Signs Down is the third and final album by Wales-based band The Automatic. It was released on 8 March 2010 in the United Kingdom, and then on 12 April 2010 for the rest of the world. Tear the Signs Down was the first album released by the band on their own Armoured Records after splitting with B-Unique. The first single "Interstate" was released on 6 December 2009, with second single "Run & Hide" released a week prior to the album itself on 1 March 2010. Third single "Cannot Be Saved" was released on 20 June 2010.
Recording and production
After record labels B-Unique and Polydor failed to release previous album This Is a Fix on time, or to promote it due to the two labels reportedly falling out, the band made the decision to end their five-album deal. After offers from various record labels the band ultimately decided to set up their own record label Armoured Records giving the band complete creative control, yet the ability to reach a mass audience with EMI contracted to distribute the album. After touring in November 2008 the band returned to the studio, only four months after the release of This Is a Fix.
Throughout the rest of 2008 and up until November 2009 the band worked from their Cardiff recording studio on new material, working on around some 20 ideas, which were eventually reduced to 11 album tracks and an unknown number of B-sides. After the writing and demoing stage, the band worked with Richard Jackson, the producer of a number of tracks on their previous albums Not Accepted Anywhere and This Is a Fix, describing Jackson as 'almost being the fifth member of the Automatic'. The album was eventually recorded with Jackson and Stephen Davies at Warwick Hall Studios in Cardiff, and later mixed at Buffalo Studios and Machine Rooms in Cardiff. In the studio the band worked with Nathan Stone and Carly Worsfold, who provided string sections on the tracks "Run & Hide" and "High Time".
Background
Lyrical themes
In an interview with Bedfordshire on Sunday vocalist & bassist Rob Hawkins summarised the lyrical construction of all three albums by the Automatic; with Not Accepted Anywhere being about personal experiences and growing up, This Is a Fix was largely based around news and world events, whilst Tear the Signs Down is more about story telling. Lyrically Tear the Signs Down is far more focused, as opposed to This Is a Fix, according to Paul Mullen. The lyrics themselves are mostly written by Hawkins and Mullen, however Iwan Griffiths and James Frost also had an input if a lyric didn't sit right with all four bandmates.
Hawkins and Mullen went through Tear the Signs Down track by track for American website randomville.com, describing the lyrical content of each song on 2 March 2010. Lead track "Insides" is described by Paul Mullen as; "the end of a relationship and the inability to cope with that fact. The build up of anger and tension so that you are ready and primed to break and destroy", and is also noted as being very different to anything the band have previously produced. The lyrics in first single "Interstate" reflect American culture - taken from the band's experience of recording half of previous record This Is a Fix in West Hollywood, California with Butch Walker, the song comments on the Americans' attitude described by Mullen as a "sickly infectious 'sweet dude' attitude they have is a great attribute, anything goes, anything can happen", he also noted the verse section of "Interstate"; "every band is allowed a song where they go 'na na na' and 'oh yeah' this is ours" and that they won't be doing it again. "Cannot Be Saved" was penned by Hawkins and is about paranoia, described by Rob as "You know, like in the summer when everyone seems to be on edge and it feels like it could just kick off for no reason".