I’m currently having a blog break due to bereavement, alongside the grief and sense of loss is a search to find comfort and consolation, which in some circumstances can be incredibly difficult. For me personally, it was having the chance to say goodbye and the knowledge that my own loss, no matter how personally devastating fitted in with the natural cycle of life.

So I can’t really imagine the pain, shock and the sense of unfairness the family and friends of Warrington band Viola Beach must currently be experiencing.  All four band members Kris Leonard, 20, River Reeves, 19, Jack Dakin, 19, Tomas Lowe, 27, and manager Craig Tarry, 32, tragically died in a car crash in Sweden this week. It was the band’s first time playing abroad.

I’d caught them a number of times during 2015, and what impressed me was not just their ability to craft anthemic indie pop songs, but their vitality, and the obvious enjoyment in what the did. You certainly got a sense of band with great potential and for it to be snatched away seems unfathomable and incredibly cruel.

I guess the only comfort the band and Craig’s family can take is that they died together doing something the believed in, loved and were incredibly passionate about. Music is an all-consuming affair for many of us.

There’s been a campaign by The Warrington Guardian and on the social media to get the lads into the charts with all monies going to the bands families.

you can download the track by clicking here.

Gallery of unpublished Viola Beach pictures taken in 2015