The Good, The Bad & The Queen unveil title track and announce new album ‘Merrie Land’ and UK tour

It's the long-awaited follow-up to the supergroup's 2007 debut album

The Good, The Bad & The Queen have shared title track and announced details of their long-awaited second album ‘Merrie Land’. Check out the video along with tour dates below.

Last week, the first information about the long-awaited album from Damon Albarn and co was finally announced – with the new record, titled ‘Merrie Land’, set for a November 16 release. The supergroup – which is comprised of Albarn, The Clash’s Paul Simonon, The Verve’s Simon Tong and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen – are finally following up their self-titled debut album, which was released back in January 2007.

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The album was written “during the current period in which the UK is preparing to leave the European Union – creating a reluctant good-bye letter, a series of observations and reflections on Britishness in 2018”.

A statement continues:  “‘Merrie Land’s focus moves beyond GBQ’s London-themed first album to a wider land, with a beautiful and hopeful paean to the Britain of today, an inclusive Britain, currently in an Anglo-Saxostentialist crises at the end of a relationship, wondering what might be salvaged.

“Could there be a more perfect band – with their creative symbiosis of pasts and present and shared acclaimed music histories – to reflect on the anticipation, disorientation and confusion of current life.”

The Good, The Bad & The Queen
The Good, The Bad & The Queen

The full track listing for Merrie Land is:

– Merrie Land
– Gun to the Head
– Nineteen Seventeen
– The Great Fire
– Lady Boston
– Drifters & Trawlers
– The Truce of Twilight
– Ribbons
– The Last Man to Leave
– The Poison Tree

Tour dates and tickets

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Meanwhile, the band will performing shows in Blackpool, Glasgow and London in December. Tickets go on sale from 9am on Friday December 26 and will be available here. See full dates below.

DECEMBER
1 – The North Pier, Blackpool
2 – SWG3, Glasgow
4 – Hackney Arts Centre, London
5 – Hackney Arts Centre, London
6 – Hackney Arts Centre, London

The imminent arrival of ‘Merrie Land’ follows a few months after Albarn told Kyle Meredith With… that a new album from The Good, The Bad & The Queen would arrive before the end of 2018. Acclaimed David Bowie producer Tony Visconti has worked on the record.

The album’s rather quiet announcement was first spotted by the Twitter account @DamonUnofficial, which posted a screenshot of a small advert for ‘Merrie Land’ in this month’s issue of Uncut, which was published yesterday (October 18). See the screenshot below.

One Reddit user has pointed out that the album’s artwork is taken from a still from the 1945 anthology horror film Dead of Night.

Earlier this year, Visconti revealed that the new record was “an ode to the North of England, bizarrely”.

“It’s sort of set in Blackpool, between Starr Gate and [historic pub] Uncle Tom’s Cabin, if you want to be geographically precise.”

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