A couple of years ago, Darren Morrissey and Greg Marshall arrived in London from Dublin with two acoustic guitars and a headful of shared dreams. They set about hauling themselves up the hard way from the rough and tumble of street corner busking and open-mic nights to playing at some of the best venues and recording studios in the city. Now it’s all about to kick off with the release of their second album, We Rise, a hard-hitting, high-kicking, rock & roll band production that reflects this period of profound personal and musical growth.

“We had a roof over our heads when we arrived but we were almost starving,” says Morrissey, the wild-eyed, long-haired singer, guitarist and songwriter. “You get to learn that the world is a big place,” says Marshall, the neater-looking, more contained harmony singer and lead guitarist. “You start with nothing, which is a great way to learn your trade. And really, it’s been the best time ever!”

For Morrissey & Marshall it’s all about the journey, literally so in the video to their anthemic single “Love and be Loved” which finds the pair taking a ride in a black cab through the London night. Their voyage begins in Queen’s Park, where they recorded their first album And So It Began (released in 2014) and its amazing successor We Rise with producer and drummer John Reynolds (Sinead O’Connor, Damien Dempsey). The ride progresses through Camden where the pair played their first London gig; through Trafalgar Square where in 2016 they played their biggest gig, at the St Patrick’s Day festival in front of 20,000 people; and past the Abbey Road studios, where they mastered the new album and where the rest of the Morrissey & Marshall band can be seen on the famous zebra crossing as the taxi goes by. The ride ends with the two men being dropped off at their local boozer in Finchley, North London, a location that has loomed large in the shaping and making of their music over the years. “We’d be on our fifth album if it wasn’t for that damn pub,” Morrissey jokes. “We've spent way too much time in there.”

The pair have indeed been known to take a drink, and are unlikely to be the first to leave whatever party is going on. But Morrissey & Marshall have in fact spent the majority of their time in the capital honing and harnessing a range of classic musical influences to produce a live act and album of timeless pop-rock appeal. While their debut, And so it Began, won them plaudits as the finest pair of harmony singers to have emerged on the circuit for decades, Morrissey & Marshall have now upped their game with a new collection of songs to rival those of the very greatest groups. With its epic production and seamless combination of vocal, instrumental and songwriting prowess, We Rise echoes a tradition of mainstream excellence stretching from Oasis all the way back to the Beatles, no less.