The Divine Comedy @ Albert Hall, Manchester (Gary Mather for Live4ever)
Neil Hannon will follow-up The Divine Comedy‘s 2016 album Foreverland with Office Politics on June 7th.
“It has synthesisers,” he says in a statement, or for these purposes, a memo. “And songs about synthesisers. But don’t panic. It also has guitars, orchestras, accordions, and songs about love and greed. It is peopled with a shiny new cast of my imaginary friends (and enemies).”
“But the central characters in Office Politics are the machines. Machines that do this, machines that do that. Machines that will smother us all in our sleep. Perhaps the raging battle of instrumentation and musical genres on the album is a subconscious reflection of this conflict.”
“Perhaps this increasingly crazy world has sent me scurrying to the new wave and synthpop of my youth for comfort.”
16 tracks are spread across the album, including Queuejumper which has been picked as its lead single.
Tour dates:
October
6 – Dublin, Bord Gais Energy Theatre
7 – Belfast, Ulster Hall
8 – Cork, Opera House
10 – Glasgow, Old Fruitmarket
11 – Birmingham, O2 Institute
12 – Oxford, O2 Academy 1
14 – Bristol, O2 Academy
15 – Leeds, Metropolitan University
16 – Brighton, Dome
17 – London, Eventim Apollo
18 – Manchester, Albert Hall