York Calling favourite Subterranean Street Society have been teasing their new album Bleep for a few months now, and we’ve shared a couple of singles from it already.

By Graeme Smith

Feature photo by Marc Nolte

God Couldn’t Save The Queen was our first taste of it, and I could tell it was going to be a collection with something to say. Railing against the secular deification of the Danish and British royal families, it didn’t hold back. From there, they took aim at our ever decreasing attention spans in Focus On The Melody.

Both tracks feature at the start of Bleep, following on from the acerbic, acoustic Society Is A Cult, and the Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Danish-Dutch folk rock trio certainly put their best foot forward on their new album. Subversion is the name of the game in an album that is sick of the direction in which we seem to be heading, and not afraid to say so.

After this breathless opening trio, other highlights include racy and nihilistic Stop Trying, bluesy, psychedelic and visceral Smartphone Pinky Fingers, fiery, punky, Neil Young-inspired title track Bleep, intimate and personal Sunshine Island and jazzy, experimental, spoken word album closer The Jab The Judge The Jury.

Bleep is an album very much of our times. It opens a conversation on censorship all while not holding its own tongue. Across its twelve tracks, we get some keenly-observed stories taking place in the here and now, delivered against a backdrop of deliberately unnerving instrumentals. It’s modern folk in its purest form.

If you’re a big a fan of Subterranean Street Society as we are, then be sure to catch them live when they tour here in May. They have a Yorkshire date in Sheffield on 11 May.

Subterrean Street Society are Louis Puggaard-Müller on vocals and guitar, Ivo Joan Schot on bass, guitar and vocals, and Joost Koevoets on drums, tape noise and vocals. Bleep is out now via Polymoon Music. You can find it in all the usual places and can check it out below.