After five decades of plumbing the depths of the human soul in his music, Leonard Cohen’s newest album title—You Want It Darker—feels almost like a challenge to the listener. Well, the upcoming LP’s eponymous lead single delivers, pairing late-career Cohen’s signature gravelly koans with a sinister men’s choir and a loping minor-key bass line.
Cohen first announced You Want It Darker last month, and today–the troubadour’s 82nd birthday, as Pitchfork points out–it gets a release date: October 21. If “You Want It Darker” sounds like it could accompany a grimy prestige cable drama, a la “Nevermind” in True Detective Season 2, that’s because it already has: Before its formal release, the song played as a snippet in an episode of Peaky Blinders earlier this year. Listen below.