In these austere times even Mercury music prize nominated bands are having to count the pennies.

Despite enjoying a string of chart hits, Young Knives have had to go back to basics for their fourth album, Sick Octave.

After enjoying label support during their breakthrough years in the mid-noughties the band have gone all DIY for their fourth album Sick Octave.

The three-piece even went as far as making their own instruments in a bid to stick to the £12,000 budget raised from fans’ pledges online.

Band leader, Henry Dartnall, said: “It’s our fourth studio album and it’s the best album we’ve ever made.

“It is of course only a matter of opinion, but that is our opinion.

“Sick Octave is a fully self-produced, self-recorded album that is a totally free and unbridled expression of our love of music and music-making.

“It’s as DIY and as filthy as we could make it.

“We wanted to make something dark and industrial, and a bit crass but with a sprinkling of pretty stuff.

“We didn’t go for producers or high-end studios, we just started recording the stuff that made us excited.

“It’s a lot rawer than our first three albums.

“We were keen to experiment with the freedom and creativity that computers offer and then mix that up with live sounds and field recordings.

“We built our own drums out of junk and sheet metal, and made our own synths and pedals.

“We spent hours messing around with sounds, nicking stuff off YouTube and recording in a disused airbase hanger.”

The cheap and cheerful approach comes just a few years after widespread industry acclaim and chart success.

Henry said: “Our first album Voices of Animals and Men was really popular!

“We had three singles entering the UK Top 40 and the album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2007.

“In 2008 we released Superabundance, we got a couple of Top 40 singles and the album included our most synched track Turn Tail; something to do with the big string section, I reckon.

“Then we decided very much that we needed to get away from major label pressures as it just didn’t suit our temperament.

“Although it may have been a naïve move, we decided to start our own label, Gadzïïk.

“In 2011 we released our third album Ornaments from the Silver Arcade, and this felt like the last record in a trilogy.

“This record has some of our favourite songs to play live, like Vision In Rags and Woman.

“But Sick Octave has been a new start for us.

“It has definitely been the most fun record we’ve ever made, and I think you can hear it in the tracks.

“We almost didn’t make it a Young Knives record as it feels so different from what went before. But that would be a lie; it is totally a Young Knives record.

“We are pretty excited to be getting this record out.

“I don’t believe that this is the effortless parpings of a band in a rut churning out another ‘fan pleaser’, so we truly hope people find this record different and invigorating, or at least interesting, or otherwise we hope you really hate it.”

Young Knives have now hit the road for their first tour since 2011.

It stops off at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Wednesday, November 20 and Henry said it would be more interesting than your usual gig.

He said: “We didn’t want to just rock up and play some songs and then go home.

“We wanted to put together a real live experience.

“Not like Pink Floyd’s The Wall, not so many lasers, but something that has an element of theatre.

“The Sick Octave show is a total performance of the record from beginning to end, with set pieces, homemade instruments and dancing, all mixed together with a blast of spectacle.

“The last third of the show will be a stripped-back set of our old stuff because we are not idiots.”