The Futureheads have shared ‘Jekyll’ – the lead single from their forthcoming sixth album (and first electric guitar release in almost a decade!), out on 30 August. Already a favourite with Steve Lamacq and his 6Music chums, it feels like the Mackem four-piece have never been away.

Described by Barry Hyde as ‘a monstrous, preposterous riff for monstrous, preposterous times’, it compares the horrors of schoolboy fights to the divisive times all around the world right now. Opening with a killer art rock-inspired guitar hook and trademark snappy rhythm section, Barry angrily asks ‘Are you an animal all the time or only when the human slips your mind?’ in an accusatory tone before going to task on the playground bully: ‘Can you predict the changes in your mood? Did you evolve from creatures in the dust? From the beasts and everything that came before us?’

He then talks about the effect these fights (and especially the group gatherings whenevrr they happened) had on his mindset: ‘I remember a fight in school, I was horrified. The evil grins and suffering burnt into mind’. He talks about how if he had the chance to go back, he’d have nothing to do with these fights and walk away but as that’s not possible, he just wishes he had answers. Barry’s bandmates join in as he asks: ‘Can you control your transformations?’ over chunky riffs and a Dinosaur Pile-up-style punk solo.

Catch The Futureheads on the following UK tour dates:

4^th May               Sugarmill                        Stoke on Trent
5^th May               Leicester                        Handmade Festival
28^th May             The Globe                      Cardiff
29^th May             The Garage                    London – SOLD OUT
30^th May             Concorde2                     Brighton
31^st May             The Waterfront                Norwich
1^st June              Rescue Rooms               Nottingham