Slumlord is the brilliant first taste from Baxter Dury’s new album The Night Chancers, which will see a release in March next year.

As one of the UK’s most interesting songwriters, he once again inhabits the song like a second skin, waxing lyrical in a literate and sharply observed way that very few can even hope to emulate let alone match. It is a tale of the unpleasant, the tainted and the grotesque whilst still retaining a sense of something despairingly romantic about it. It is the musical equivalent of a bare lightbulb swinging in a dingy bedsit, casting sickly light on things you might not want to see, and then suddenly illuminating something that might break your heart.

Musically there are echoes of The Clash, of Straight to Hell perhaps, and some Nile Rodgers style funk that just settles into a groove that quickly becomes irresistible.

Best thing he’s ever done as far as we’re concerned and Slumlord has some tough competition.

Great video too.