The Edinburgh trio return, guns blazing.

Scottish-Liberian-Nigerian outfit Young Fathers have announced the follow-up to their Mercury Prize winning debut album, Dead.

The press release comes with a lengthy statement explaining the title of the album, White Men Are Black Men Too.

“We came at it from a different angle, a positive angle,” explains Alloysious Massaquoi. “It’s got issues of race and so what? Why should alarm bells start ringing, even though in general conversations race, politics, sex and religion are always the subject matter? Why should it be discussed behind closed doors and never confronted head on? […] I wanna stand for something which I helped make. Folk will complain about absolutely anything… Even if it’s it from the purest of intentions you just can’t win. We don’t make music to please other people or write certain lyrics to do so, either. Why start now?”

Meanwhile, the stream-of-consciousness press notes state that “the sounds are closer on this album, closer to your ears,” and “there are less words than before.” A sticker on the vinyl and CD also reads ‘file under Rock and Pop’, signalling the band’s intentions to expand beyond niche genres: “In Rock and Pop you are allowed to pretty much be yourself.”

The band travelled to Berlin to record the album and also recorded in Melbourne and London before finishing off the album in their basement studio in Edinburgh. They’re on tour in the US soon, starting on April 9 in Boston, with a UK tour kicking off in Glasgow on May 20.

Hear the first track from the album, ‘Rain Or Shine’, below. White Men Are Black Men Too is out via Big Dada on April 6.