Watch: Hartheim - "Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday cover)"

The original was written by Abel Meeropol in 1937, and was inspired by the abhorrent regularity of lynching of African Americans, primarily in the United States.

Hartheim's frontman Mike Emerson explained the decision to cover the song:

"It's the most important song ever written in my eyes. The startlingly depressing thing is that now, almost 80 years after it was first published, the message remains just as poignant. With everything that happened in Ferguson last year, and no doubt is happening all over the world every day, it felt like the only thing to do… and there's no better way to express it than what's already there in the lyrics. It's brutal, and unsettling, and most heartbreakingly - still completely relevant."

The session was recorded alongside the "200-year inhabitants of the functioning crypt below St.Philips Church in Salford." It also features a reading by Roy Fischer prize-winning poet Lauren Bolger.

The cover arrives ahead of Hartheim's upcoming single, "When Did Your Last Rose Die?" which will be released via JackToPhono Records on 9 March.

Watch the "Strange Fruit" cover below.