Concrete Love is the fourth studio album by British rock band Courteeners, released on 18 August 2014 via Cooperative Music label. It features the band delve further into a post-punk sound and was inspired by 1980s music. Promoted by two singles, Concrete Love received generally favourable reviews from music critics and reached number three on the UK Albums Chart. Background Courteeners released their third studio album Anna in February 2013. It peaked at number six in the UK Albums Chart; out of its three singles, "Lose Control" was the only one to chart, reaching number 82 in the United Kingdom. The band promoted the album with two tours of the UK – one at the start of the year and the other at the end – and special performances at Castlefield Bowl. Frontman Liam Fray and Joe Cross, who had produced Anna, went to Montmartre, Paris to work on demos for the band's next album. Cross took his laptop and a few instruments to help them; the pair eventually came up with an album's worth of songs. Following the second UK tour, the band went on hiatus; it did not last long as Fray explained: "the good songs just kept coming and people still seemed quite hungry for us, so we carried on". Following this, Fray and Cross went to Whitby to do further work on the demos. Composition and lyrics Concrete Love is an indie rock and synth-pop album that expands on the sound of Anna, drawing from 1980s music. AllMusic reviewer Matt Collar said the band "delve even deeper into a layered post-punk sound that finds them adding more guitars and even strings on some cuts". Fray described the material as "stories, they come from somewhere. They're a little bit less literal, a bit more abstract [...] I've always been a fan of that kind of kitchen sink style of writing. [...] There are little pockets of abstract dotted around. So there's a bit more, 'Let people make their mind up', I guess, than the last record". "White Horses" features country-leaning acoustic guitars, backed by industrial beats. On "How Good It Was", Fray explained that "it almost felt like a kind of Beach Boy Motown, as a kind of homage to Danny Zuko and it happened". It is an indie pop song dealing with love during one's childhood years. "Small Bones" describes long distance relationships; the horns heard