Seven years in the making, Manchester three-piece The Longcut have returned with a new album, Arrows, out on Deltasonic on April 6th. From it they’ve released a new single ‘Deathmask’, and it sees the bands brutalist synth rock return unbowed, as energetic and mesmerising as ever. Of the new track, it appears the words came together very quickly, “I was walking home in a pretty shitty mood and this really ominous weather front came over,” recalls the band’s vocalist and drummer, Stuart Ogilvie. “The sky went dark and there was this static electric feeling in the air, powerful and foreboding. That’s where the line “Under the gathering sulphur” comes from. It got me thinking about escapism; not to some sunny uplands, but to a place where the natural order was breaking down too.”
Born out of these insistent arpeggios from the synth, it gradually unfurls, with brooding guitars and driving drums adding to it, and getting a full 2 1/2 minutes in before the vocals come in. It’s gripping stuff, as it weaves and morphs into something that you can’t ignore, and why would you want to? It’s startling.
Check it out, here
