Mark Vennis & Different Place – Goodbye To All That

Mark Vennis & Different Place return with Goodbye To All That, a bold, politically charged, and deeply British album that confronts the history and legacy of the British Empire while questioning what British identity means today. Older, wiser, and with something urgent to say, the band delivers a cinematic and intelligent collection of songs that speak directly to the times we live through.

Hailing from Petersfield, Hampshire, Mark Vennis & Different Place are a punk-roots band drawing on the spirit of The Clash, The Jam, The Kinks, alongside Wire, Gang of Four, and roots reggae. Their sound is a powerful amalgam of punk energy, folk storytelling, reggae rhythms, and blues grit — unmistakably British and entirely their own. Goodbye To All That is a 12-track journey through history, memory, and contradiction. Lyrically, the album tells stories of soldiers, workers, captains, merchants, slaves, and seamen, weaving together personal narratives and political reflection. It grapples with the tension between ideas such as public duty, tolerance, and fair play, and the darker realities underpinning empire and power.

The album draws inspiration from landmark works including The Kinks’ Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), The Jam’s Setting Sons, Linton Kwesi Johnson’s late-1970s albums (Bass Culture, Forces of Victory), PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake, and the folk classic The Green Fields of France. Literary and cinematic influences range from Robert Graves’ Goodbye To All That and George Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn to Powell and Pressburger’s 1940s films, alongside contemporary works such as R.F. Kuang’s Babel and Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland. Musically, the album weaves folk, blues, and rock together with a punk heart and an abundance of guitars. The result is a collection of vivid, evocative, and often haunting songs that feel both historically rooted and sharply contemporary.