By order of the Peaky Blinders, one fantastic new soundtrack!
Peaky Blinders is undoubtedly one of the greatest British TV series since the turn of the millennium. Incredible acting, scripts that always kept you guessing, great direction and stunning, stunning musical accompaniment. It always married great songs with a strong original score. On this new film Antony Genn (collaborator of Pulp and Elastica) and Martin Slattery (Genn’s bandmate in Mescaleros and The Hours) return having worked on seasons four, five and six.
They have assembled a top team of talent to support them including a somewhat deconstructed Fontaines D.C.. Grian Chatten lends his vocals to a number of tracks. Guitarist Carlos O’Connell provides his playing prowess on separate tracks. Drummer Tom Coll even pops up on a track with Amyl and The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor. The band come back together through their back catalogue, first providing recent album title track ‘Romance’ and then older 2020 title track ‘A Hero’s Death.’
Fontaines were one of several bands whose rise came just too late to get featured during the run of the TV series, they feel like a perfect and natural fit. When I first heard Lankum’s ‘Go Dig My Grave’ I wrote on a Facebook post (yes, that old) that had it come out a few years earlier it would have been a shoe in to feature on the soundtrack of Peaky Blinders. Well, they haven’t gone with that but instead asked Lankum to provide a new version of ‘Hunting The Wren’ where Radie Peat’s sublime voice is joined by Grian Chatten’s backing vocals across seven minutes of epicness.
Of all the tracks featured, the inclusion of Mclusky almost made me fall of my chair. For those of us who enjoyed the fractured brilliance of ‘Alan is a Cowboy Killer’ or ‘Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues’ the return of the band in 2025 was a joy. Their first work since 2006 was a superb comeback, album highlight ‘people person’ sounds like it was written to order for the show. So much heavier than their normal sound the lyrics are on point for the Shelbys.
The original score is as moody and atmospheric as you would expect. Among it all ‘Puppet’ is a standout full song of awesomeness. This is perfect music for a million Shelby related misdemeanours and confirms Grian Chatten as one of the most important artists of our time. Roll on the Fontaines D.C. headline slot at Reading 2026. “How does it feel to be a freak among the freaks?” Absolutely bloody brilliant on the strength of this track.
One of the greatest tricks Peaky Blinders pulled was using ‘Red Right Hand’ as its title track. It was an incredible sleight of hand, as it had been used on so many things over the years it had almost become a cliché. Somehow the series managed to return it to its coolness, its sense of power. There is a new version for the film. It only credits Nick Cave so this looks like a special new to-order job thirty-two years on from the brilliant original. This version is slower and slightly more orchestral, fitting for a film version of the show.
There is room for not one, but two Massive Attack covers. Irish/Cornish band Girl In The Year Above provide a beautiful piano led version of ‘Teardrop.’ Grian Chatten joins Slattery and Genn for a darker take on ‘Angel.’
Is the film any good? Who knows, haven’t seen it yet. If it is as good as this soundtrack, then it will be a very fine movie indeed!
Essential tracks: ‘Puppet,’ ‘people person,’ ‘Medusa’ and ‘Hunting The Wren.’
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