British heavy metal band Skyclad have just signed a record deal with French label Listenable Records.

Band guitarist/songwriter Steve Ramsey comments: “We're really looking forward to working with the whole Listenable team. They did a fantastic job for Satan in the past four years, becoming good friends and reliable partners. We're excited to extend this partnership to the Skyclad family.”

Skyclad are a British heavy metal band formed in 1990 in their home town of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Combining heavy metal/thrash metal with British indie/post-punk and folk influences, they created a highly original and influential sound; today Skyclad are widely regarded as one of the originators of folk metal. The band’s lyrics are generally in the vein of a classic protest band, discussing politics, society, social issues and environmental destruction.

In the past 25 years, Skyclad played hundreds of shows all across Europe and released 12 critically acclaimed LPs plus several EPs and compilation albums.

Skyclad's yet unnamed first album on Listenable Records is scheduled for a release in spring 2017. It will be the band's 13th studio album and marks the return of guitarist Dave Pugh to Skyclad's lineup as a permanent member.

Steve added: “The new album will contain loads of brand new songs as well as tunes based on demos we recorded around 2011/2012. Some ideas from the mid 1990s that we recently re-discovered might make it to the LP, too!

“Even though we played a couple of ‘old school shows’ recently, the new LP definitely won’t be a thrash album; but it will be no typical folk metal album either. We’ll use all the options we now have - with three guitarists, additional vocals, fiddle, keyboards, bass and drums - to create an album that will be the same but different. 100% Skyclad!“