Pennie Smith
The Good, The Bad & The Queen were back on live television in the UK last night after confirming their return earlier this month with a brand new studio album.
The collective of Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon, Tony Allen and Simon Tong performed the title-track of Merrie Land on Later…With Jools Holland, the same track picked to accompany its announcement for release on November 16th.
Their first album since the self-titled effort of 2007 will be played live in Blackpool, Glasgow and London during a short UK tour in December and, according to the collective, was conceived ‘during the current period in which the UK is preparing to leave the European Union – creating a reluctant goodbye letter, a series of observations and reflections on Britishness in 2018’:
“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.”
