Black Honey have announced that their new third studio album, A Fistful of Peaches, is set to arrive on March 17, 2023 via FoxFive Records.
To mark the news, the indie-pop rockers have shared a new single, Heavy, which features a bittersweet melody and emotive lyrics that explore the link between grief and depression.
The new track arrives with a glamorous video, starring Dakota Schiffer from Drag Race UK, who also serves as director. For her directional debut, Schiffer explains how the visual is "centred around the themes of trans femininity”.
She adds: "A self-portrait of a struggling trans person who’s exterior appears alluring and glamorous but is constructed out of a need for survival. That survival has led many trans people in history to endanger themselves in pursuit of euphoria.”
Of the track itself and the inspiration behind it, frontwoman Izzy Phillips says: “We wrote this song the day I found out the founder of our fan club passed away from COVID-19. We were talking about the weight of grief and the way it holds you down.
“The weight of mental illness and how it brings you a deeper understanding grief. There’s always a glimmer of light though and I love how Heavy has that kind of glitter darkness. It’s in my nature to become co-dependant and I think in this song I’m reaching for someone to help me climb back out.”
Referencing the lyric 'Don't wanna watch the white horse drown / Never ending therapy 'cause my head is the enemy', Phillips explains: “I talk a bit about The NeverEnding Story [1984] as it was my first dialog with death and depression as a child. Watching Artax the horse getting swallowed by the nothing whilst Atreyu screamed helplessly from the edges of a swamp really spoke to me.”
Of her mental process in writing the new album, she adds: “Most of this record is me trying to figure out where the line is between normal mental health and when you’re having breakdowns every day that then become part of normal. I thought everyone cried everyday, I thought everyone had traumatic flashbacks and nightmares.
“This album is like, what the fuck? I didn’t have to have that? It’s like opening a new door to a future that I didn’t think possible, but it’s also soured by the realisation that I had to suffer through so much that I shouldn’t have had to. I don’t know what I’ll make next but it won’t be where I was when I made this.”
Listen to Heavy below:
A Fistful Of Peaches tracklist:
1. Charlie Bronson
2. Heavy
3. Ups Against It
4. Out of My Mind
5. Rock Bottom
6. Cut the Cord
7. OK
8. I’m a Man
9. Nobody Knows
10. Weirdos
11. Tombstone
12. Bummer
