Spear of Destiny new album and Polar Bear gig

Spear of Destiny

By Simon Bristow

Power-rockers Spear of Destiny will play at Hull’s Polar Bear next Thursday as they release their 15th studio album and approach the 40th anniversary of the band’s formation.

The date on December 1 is part of the group’s winter tour marking the release of new album Ghost Population, which features tracks “spanning everything from personal to political and past to present”.

Some songs were written during lockdown, with others penned as far back as 1986.

Frontman Kirk Brandon said: “The album title came about because of a piece I read online where scientists were researching the available DNA samples from human history — Denisovans, Neanderthals etc. It became clear to them from fragments in the DNA that there was another race back then. They haven’t found out who these people were as yet, but they nicknamed them a ‘Ghost Population’.

“I applied this in my non-scientific way, and thought of how social engineering has marginalised so much of society, not acknowledging the disenfranchised and writing them out of existence. When someone is no longer talked about, eventually they no longer exist.”

The tour features the band’s longest serving line-up to date, including Adrian Portas (New Model Army/Sex Gang Children), Craig Adams (Sisters of Mercy/The Cult/The Mission) and Phil Martini (Jim Jones and the Righteous Mind), as well as Clive Osborne on saxophone and Steve Allen-Jones on keys.