Welcome to ‘Black Honey’, the self-titled debut album today announced by the UK’s best rising band due for release on September 21st. Listen to album opener ‘I Only Hurt The Ones I Love’ today.
Bursting out of the ether in 2014 with their squalling guitars, vivid colours and cinematic vignettes, there’s no other British band out there quite like Black Honey. Having spent the last four years perfecting the indie game, everything you think you know about them and their unique surrealist world is about to be wonderfully shaken up as they prepare to release their hugely anticipated debut album. With contradiction at every turn, it’s an album that celebrates being human, in all its different forms and by doing so, will touch the hearts of everyone that hears it.
We’ve already heard ‘Bad Friends’ earlier this year, but with the exception of 2016’s ‘Hello, Today’ (the track that saw the band become a household name at Radio 1), and the 2017 closer ‘Dig’, the album is made up of entirely new music with 9 brand new songs on offer. Album opener ‘I Only Hurts The Ones I Love’ – which you can listen to now – is a fascinating Garbage-flavoured meander that sets the tone for the record brilliantly. From there, there’s stone cold classic ‘Wasting Time’, Lana Del Ray nodding slow-burner ‘Blue Romance’ and disco-pop Trojan horse ‘Midnight’ – to name just a few. However, across the entirety of the record, you can always feel the bare bones of front lady Izzy B Phillips diary scribbles are just around the corner as the varying tracks switch between chart-headed bangers and scuzzy, industrial David Lynch inspired strangeness.
It’s the weird and wonderful mind of Philipps – her lovable but villainous, Milky-Bar-kid-meets-Debbie Harry persona – that you find very much at the heart of ‘Black Honey’. An open sufferer of both dyslexia and ADHD, she’s a huge advocate for self-expression without limit and has relied hugely on her band – Tom Dewhurst (drums), Tom Taylor (bass) and Chris Ostler (guitar) – to channel everything that comes from her obsessive and dizzyingly creative head and bottle it into music. The album as a result is ultimately a collage of chaos, shot straight at the heart – honest, inspiring and deeply infectious.
Black Honey Track Listing:
Only Hurt The Ones I Love
Midnight
Whatever Happened To You
Bad Friends
Blue Romance
Crowded City
Hello Today
Baby
Into The Nightmare
Dig
Just Calling
Wasting Time
UK festival dates:
30/06 Finsbury Park w/ QOTSA, London
12-14/07 2000 Trees, Cheltenham
12-14/07 Latitude Festival, Southwold
19-22/07 Truck Festival, Oxfordshire
20-22/07 Tramlines Festival, Sheffield
26-29/07 Kendal Calling, Kendal
04/08 – Bestival, Dorset
18/08 – RIZE Festival, Chelmsford
30/08-01/09 Electric Fields, Dumfries
31/08-02/09 Bingley Music Live, Bingley
October UK headline tour:
13/10 Thekla – Bristol
14/10 Concorde 2 – Brighton
15/10 Academy 2 – Birmingham
16/10 Norwich Arts Centre – Norwich
18/10 Church – Leeds
19/10 Riverside – Newcastle
20/10 Stereo – Glasgow
21/10 Academy 2 – Manchester
23/10 Rescue Rooms – Nottingham
24/10 Electric Ballroom – London