6 Music - Music News

The Futureheads have given us a heads up as to the sound of their as-yet-untitled new album, the follow-up to 2008’s This Is Not The World.

Singer Barry Hyde told 6 Music their upcoming record, which is due in early 2010, can be defined as; "Neo-classical north-east punk-folk music."

Speaking about its first taster, Barry thinks it was a good move giving away the song for free from The Futureheads’ official site.

"We’re really chuffed with it actually," he explained. "I’m so pleased we’ve gone with Struck Dumb as the first sound people are hearing.

"We did it ourselves in a £200 a day demo studio in Newcastle but it sounds great. We produced it ourselves and it feels like we’re starting off in quite a confident way."

New terrain

Drummer Dave Hyde and his partner had a baby at the beginning of year, so making the record took a bit longer than expected, with recording sessions in Sunderland, Newcastle and London.

As for its sound, Ross Millard said they went into un-chartered territory with this one.

"You’ve got some straight up, almost just dumb, punk-rock songs that are a continuation of the last record," he said. "But then there’s some really crazy stuff on there as well, stuff that we’ve never done before."

"There's some really crazy stuff on there as well, stuff that we've never done before."

Ross Millard

While they self-produced it, they had a helping hand during some sessions, from David Brewis, who had some time off from his Field Music and School of Language projects.

They have recorded with him in the past, and Barry explained: "We slipped in for a few sessions with Dave. It was a very different kind of experience to working with a producer. He didn’t really produce it. He was just a very intelligent engineer."

Live return

Meanwhile, after a lengthy break, the band returned to the live scene last night (14 Dec).

Armed with five new songs, the Sunderland quartet took on the Lexington in London.

Ross Millard said they decided to make "a special thing of it", so alongside their latest batch, they played songs from their second album News and Tributes, which the band said they’ve not played live in around three years.