Steve Knightley and Phil Beer – operating as widely lauded folk paring Show Of Hands – have unveiled new single Lost, taken from their upcoming album Battlefield Dance Floor. 

The new album – the band’s 18th studio offering – follows on from 2016’s The Long Way Home, which reached number 70 in the UK Album Chart and number 9 in the UK Independent Albums Chart. It is due for release on September 27th.

For the album, the duo have teamed up again with long-term collaborator Miranda Sykes and percussionist Cormac Byrne, and together the foursome are embarking on a 21-date UK tour during October, November, and December in support of the record. 

Battlefield Dance Floor – co-produced with Mark Tucker – features eight new tracks written by Knightley and a co-write, as well as four reinterpretations of original songs by Leonard Cohen, Kirsty Merryn, Richard Shindell, and Adrian Mannering. A double vinyl version of the album will include two bonus tracks not available on the CD version.

If Lost is anything to go by the new album will be among the most ambitious albums in the bands 33-year career. It’s a bustling soundscape with the same signature singalong feel, lyrical sharpness and storytelling insight, that can be found in so much of their best work. 

Writing on Facebook about the new single, the band shared: “On the surface, Lost is inspired by the story of doomed sailor Donald Crowhurst who died while competing in the 1968 single-handed, round the world Golden Globe Race – but with a deeper theme summed up by Steve as ‘a maritime-themed song about masculine despair.’”

Pre-order Battlefield Dance Floor here 

Listen to the official audio of Lost here

Tickets and tour dates for Show Of Hands are available here

Battlefield Dance Floor track list:

1. Lost
2. Battlefield Dance Floor
3. Just Enough To Lose
4. Mother Tongue
5. You’ll Get By
6. Forfarshire
7. First We Take Manhattan
8. Make The Right Noises
9. Dreckley
10. Next Best Western
11. Swift And Bold (celer et audax)
12. My True Love
13. No Secrets

 Folk