Black Honey have returned with their buzzing, powerful new single ‘Charlie Bronson’, accompanied by a boxing ring-set video.

The track follows the release last year of the Brighton band’s second album ‘Written & Directed’, which landed at Number Seven on the Official UK Albums Chart.

‘Charlie Bronson’ keeps the four-piece’s momentum going with a raw and unfiltered exploration of singer and guitarist Izzy Phillips’ experiences with the weight of societal expectations. “Gaslighting myself again,” she sings. “Lay me down with Marilyn / Rest in peace and rise again.”

“There’s a personality in my head that feels like Britain’s most notorious prisoner,” Phillips explained in a press release. “Sometimes I can’t make sense of anything. It’s a bind of frustration from having to constantly present myself in a way that society accepts. My mind works differently. I say all the wrong things. I hate being ‘ladylike’. I was punished so much for what I know to be my good qualities; a strong-minded neurodivergent person who is creative, inquisitive, excitable and in my own universe.

“I was medicated, my shine dimmed and I began to see how the world rewards women who turn invisible. ‘Charlie Bronson’ is my rage.”

Black Honey will celebrate the release of the new single with an intimate gig at London’s Omeara next week (August 16), before taking to the main stage at Reading & Leeds for the first time at the end of the month. The band will play in Reading on August 26 before heading to Leeds on August 27.

Last year, the group shared their gratitude for the NHS as they opened up about guitarist Chris Ostler’s recovery from major spinal surgery. The musician lost mobility in February 2021 due to a herniated disc in his neck compressing his spinal cord. At the time, he was warned the surgery’s worst-case scenario could be permanent paralysis from the neck down.

“Thank you to the NHS,” Black Honey wrote in a message shared on social media. “Because of u Chris went from a hospital bed to the stage in just SIX WEEKS, and to top this off, it was free! We are so fucking thankful and lucky to have this. You are absolute heroes who carried us through a pandemic […] Thanks to the NHS Black Honey is back in action and stronger than ever.”