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It’s been a momentous year for The bianca Story. In the wake of critical acclaim at home in Switzerland, they absconded to London to record their as-yet-untitled second album in the hallowed halls of London’s Abbey Road Studios, with the intention of reinventing themselves as purveyors of good honest pop, with lashings of heart and soul.

All was going swimmingly, until the tragic death of their manager and creative inspiration Nigel Day upon their return to Basel to mix the album. Working through their shock and grief, the band nonetheless managed to win the coveted 2010 Basel Pop Prize in November, and press ahead with release plans for the new album.

Despite being recorded before his death, ‘Coming Home’, the alt-country influenced first single, seems eerily prescient in its heartfelt, melancholy yearning for a physical and spiritual homecoming – the sadness is almost palpable. It’s the song you listen to when your heart has been broken into pieces, stomped on and left with dirty treadmarks, the song that brings tears to your eyes and a lump to your chest when you are desperate for a cathartic emotional release. Wonderful.

If ‘Coming Home’ is any indication of the new material, then I seriously cannot wait for the new album (I’m even willing to overlook the strange capitalisation of their name, grammar nazi that I am).

Directed by Gregor Brändli, and dedicated to Nigel Paul Day, ‘Coming Home’ is the band’s ‘call to life’. It was Nigel Day’s idea to release it as the first single from the new album, and it now exists as a poignant tribute to him. I dare anyone to watch it and not be moved.

‘Coming Home’ is out now as a digital download and limited edition CD. The bianca Story’s second album is released in Spring 2011.

The bianca Story play @ Papiersaal tonight Saturday 18.12.10.