Rejuvenated Birmingham post-punks CULT FIGURES trail the release of their new album with a new video which they're premiering exclusively with Vive Le Rock!
'Chicken Bones' is the opening track from Deritend, the band's first album of new material in 40 years. Taking its curious name from the historic industrial district just southeast of Birmingham city centre, it follows on from 2018's The 166 Ploughs A Lonely Furrow, which featured new recordings of material written during their original late 70s existence.
Cult Figures emerged from the same fertile Birmingham punk scene that spawned The Nightingales, Spizzenergi and Swell Maps, who would become the band's mentors, going so far as to appear on their now highly collectable 1979 debut single 'Zip Nolan'. Sharing stages with the likes of The Fall, Felt, GBH - and at one time supported by a fledgling A Flock Of Seagulls - the band split in 1980, only to reform in 2016.
Made under lockdown, the video for 'Chicken Bones' was directed by the Figures’ very own twice BAFTA winning guitarist Jon Hodgson; combining grainy monochrome footage of singer Gary Jones, striding purposely through the streets of East London, with a grisly montage of Jones’s own photographs captured on the streets of Shoreditch, Soho and Tottenham Court Road.
"The lurid imagery documents the human remains and detritus of a drug and alcohol fuelled nightlife," says Jones. "The chicken bones and ketchup splats; the dropped fries and tough guys; the pigeon feasters and the drink can beasters. Echoing the words of the song, the debris captured on camera chronicles the story of the streets that 'look different, but… all still smell the same'."
Set for release on 26 March through Gare Du Nord Records, Deritend is available to pre-order on CD and heavyweight vinyl here and digitally here.
Read an interview with Cult Figures in the new edition of Vive Le Rock!