THE RAH'S are preparing to re-announce themselves on the Scottish music scene as they build towards their debut album later this year.

On Friday, the band unveil The Time Is Now – the first single to be taken from their upcoming record. It will mark the first step in a whole new era for the group, as they bid farewell to the past and embrace the future to come.

To date, the four-piece have released only a handful of singles, beginning with Sweet Talker in 2017 and followed up by Survival and Take It All In in 2018. They then released Land of the Dreamers in 2019, but Jack McLeod, the band's frontman, feels those songs didn't quite receive the attention they deserved.

Three of their four singles will be re-worked and the fresh version will be included in the upcoming album, with the originals likely to be withdrawn from the likes of Spotify.

"We're going to have a bit of a clear out," McLeod tells The Weekender. "We'll freshen things up so that the full focus will be on the new material on the upcoming album.

"It's like having a trophy on the mantlepiece – you don't want to take it down, but you need to get new photos of the family up there."

The Rah's began work on the record a few years ago and had been hopeful of releasing in April this year. While it has been delayed, McLeod is focused on making sure the band is always looking forward and not at what is behind them.

He says: "I don't think the songs earned the recognition they deserved when they were first released – they could have done so much better, I think. But now with the company we have and the platform the album should give us, they should get what they deserve.

"We're hoping for a 12-track album, hopefully with a couple of bonus songs as well. The three that are up on Spotify, some other older stuff and some completely new material.

"The making of the album has actually been going on since 2016-2017. We took all the previous songs into the studio and asked the producer for his input. Three of the four tracks on Spotify – Sweet Talker, Land of the Dreamers and Take it All in – will all be going on the album. Two are completely new mixes and Land of the Dreamers will pretty much be an entirely new song because we have done so much work to it.

"The work is never complete; we are always working on them. We'll probably be back in a couple of years to do them again, no doubt. It's always been like that for us; I don't know if it is boredom or whatever, but as we play them over the years we always try to spice them up.

"We were supposed to release the album in April, but we have put it back," The singer adds. "We came to the agreement that there was not much point in bringing out our first album if we couldn't tour on it – fingers crossed, it will be out towards the tail-end of the year.

"But we still want to release some new music in some form; it's always best because we are constantly writing and re-writing."

This Friday marks their first release of 2020 and it has already started turning some heads among some policymakers. And while the band will have no launch gig for the single, they will be toasting the first step in their next chapter for The Rah's.

"It's one of those older tracks that we have revisited," McLeod adds. "We recorded it in Glasgow back in 2017, I think, but with a different line-up to the band at the time.

"We released it as a single back then and though it was picked up by some – I think it got played on BBC Scotland and the like – it didn't quite get the attention I thought it deserved. It's quite a universal song in terms of its lyrics.

"Our team – the PR guys – were keen on that song as the introduction for the whole album campaign, and it's paid off already. We've had plays on Radio X and things, so it's kicked off well.

"Our next single after that will be Our Design, which we did an isolation version of last month."

The Rah's are slated to play Broadcast in Glasgow on July 18, though it is looking less likely the gig will go ahead as it is unclear whether lockdown measures will be lifted by then. Indeed, that show was already postponed from earlier in the year.

McLeod says: "It is crushing not being able to play, but every band is in the same boat. We're not ones to sit here and play victim. Other folk are missing weddings so to miss out on a few gigs is minor in the grand scheme of things.

"But it's been amazing to see the creativity that has come from lockdown, though. I've seen a lot bands putting out isolation versions and covers – quite like that sort of thing. It's been a bit of blessing for some; we still have music."

The Time Is Now will be available to buy and stream from Friday, June 12.