New Album Alert 2026

FONTAINES D.C. – The Fully Grown Irishmen’s 5th Album ‘DOPAMINE CHAMBER’ Is A 5-Star Triumph

Posted on by JL

16 October 2026

Band: FONTAINES D.C.
Who: The Irish indie stars, fronted
by their charismatic and highly talented
singer/songwriter Grian Chatten.

Album: DOPAMINE CHAMBER.
Their 5th. Order info here.

Grian Chatten (frontman/songwriter) who spent time among the faded grandeur
of Venice, Vienna and Sicily in search of lyrical inspiration: “I think Romance was maybe
60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling.

This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted — the mask is wearing the face a little
more. I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness
honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”

NME says: “A doom-ridden escape from the band of the decade. The gothy tones of
The Cure linger and ‘Dopamine Chamber’ would sit comfortably alongside the melancholy moodpieces of ‘Disintegration’ and ‘Pornography’, as well as the future-proof genre-clash
and dislocation of Massive Attack’s ‘Mezzanine’.”

TUTV: Their first 2 LPs were afire ones, the ones young gunslingers make, full of vim
and vigour and stuffed with muscular barnstormers. With their third album Skinty Fia
the growing-up Irishmen showed signs of change of course, sonically and lyrically.

The 4th full-length Romance confirmed their new direction completely
and now with Dopamine Chamber they created/crafted a masterpiece.

A strings sweeping, orchestral, gloom/doom triumph. More cinematic, designed synth arrangements, less youthful guitar upheaval, more in-depth reflections about what worried Chatten sees and hears around him in this dark era.

His ruminative tonality and affecting storytelling timbre are on his most entrancing button. This sign of the times exploit will spin on my headphones for a long time. One
of the most fulfilling accomplishments of 2026.

Singles.

– MARIANNE –

– TONGUE –

– WHERE IS GONE? –
Featuring Rosalía

ALBUM


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2027 TOUR

2019 TOUR

Grian Chatten, yours truly, and a T-shirt.

BODEGA – NYC Rockers Keep It Simple On Their New Let’s Have Fun Album ‘ALL IN THE AQUARIUM’

Posted on by JL

12 October 2026


Press credit

Band: BODEGA
Who: Zesty rock team
from NYC.

Album: ALL INSIDE AQUARIUM
Their 4th.

Press info: “‘All Inside Aquarium’ sees the band expanding far beyond their minimalist post-punk origins towards soaring anthemic rock, sans the ‘indie’. Sonically, the band aimed for “this late ’80’s/early 90’s Stone Roses-meets-Janes Addiction thing, with more riffing and guitar solos.”

Where the band’s earlier material took a more explicitly sociopolitical bent, Hozie and Belfilgio’s writing on All Inside Aquarium is deliberately more concerned with the personal, poetics, and play.


Album artwork

TUTV: Bodega never made world-shattering records, and All Inside Aquarium isn’t world-shattering. Bodega always made uncomplicated and galvanizing records, and this one is their most uncomplicated and galvanizing one. A let’s have fun album. And fun we have, folks.

They jump from funky crackerjack rockers (the title track / Weather Me / Pick Up The Check / Slow Train) to easygoing, poppy guitar tunes (Literary World / Oxygen / Olivia) without trying to overdo it in any way whatsoever. Straightforward and simple. Paul Weller would say “that’s entertainment“.

SINGLES

ALBUM


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Cover Of Brand New Debut Album By Irish Post Punks BASHT.

Posted on by JL

12 October 2026


Photo by Turn Up The Volume – Rock Werchter, Belgium – 6 July 2026

Band: BASHT.
Who: Serrated post-punks
from Ireland.

Album: POOR ADVICE
Their brand new debut.

About the artwork: “We thought it was perfect to have the child – Harley – be shooting at something. It’s like he’s the kid shooting at the establishment, shooting at the stained-glass that you might find in a church. He’s taking shots at what he perceives to be the authority in his life, and he’s questioning what he’s been told from an early age.”


Album artwork

Mojo Magazine says: “The LP’s 10 squally, dynamics-rich songs skewer
ld Ireland Catholicism, the nanny state, and their hair trigger fragility of
peaceful existence.”

TUTV: Fresh Dublin‘s deep-seated, unambiguously
opinionated and socioemotional kneecap post-punks
make their mark.


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Photo by Turn Up The Volume

TRIGGERFINGER – Belgian Stoner Rockers Have Their Riff-Roasting 6th Album ‘TARMAC’ Out

Posted on by JL

28 September 2026

Band: TRIGGERFINGER
Who: Belgian rock vets Ruben Block and
Mario Goossens who started as a trio back
in 1998.

Album: TARMAC
6th full-length, the tandem’s
first in 9 years.

Ruben Block (vocalist/guitarist) talked to Belgian
magazine Humo about their new record in 9 years.

“People get older; we view life differently now than we did back then. The world has changed too. So the situation is naturally different than it was then. But apart from that, we did indeed try to make a record that sounds a bit different from what we had already made.

It’s fucking hard to write a good song, isn’t it? It takes time, energy, concentration, and frustration. You hope that people will enjoy hearing it and that we’ll be able to tour with
it for a while: that’s it.”

TUTV: For nearly 30 years now, Belgian stone rockers use a simple formula. Let the riffs
do the main talking. Triggerfringer play in the first division of electric-magnetic rawk ‘n’ roll, knocking out bombproof bangers with bona fide dedication and lots of blare, triggering dextrous body activity. No arty farty tricks. Straight on. Bingo.

SINGLES

ALBUM


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5 NEW ALBUMS: GURRIERS – GILLA BAND – NOTHING BUT THIEVES – SOFT CELL – ADULT DVD

Posted on by JL

25 September 2026


Pukkelpop Fest, Belgium – 21 August 2026 – Photo by Turn Up The Volume

BAND: GURRIERS
Who: Fast-rising, voltaic
indies from Dublin, Ireland.

Album: NOBODY’S COMING TO SAVE YOU
Their 2nd.

Press info: “With Nobody’s Coming To Save You, Gurriers have sent their ambitions sky-high and come out swinging. If the band’s MO was to find a way to make the record “slap you in the face”, then consider yourself smacked.”


Album artwork

TUTV: Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the hottest records of the year. They rock,
they punk, and they punch with blood-and-guts fervour. They’re on a quest to find the
light at the end of the tunnel to replace today’s dark times. Watch your back, Fontaines, your fellow committed countrymen are coming fast.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Band: GILLA BAND
Who: Razor-blade-cutting,
idiosyncratic Irish post-punks.

Album: PUGNELLO.
Their 4th and first in 4 years.

Press info: “Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now,
the Dublin quartet have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way.”

TUTV: I follow/love these Irishmen since I saw them live in Belgium in 2014
as nervous snotnoses hadn’t a record out yet, as support act for Fat White
Family. Their chainsaw hullabaloo went through bone and marrow.

And it still does. Mind you, their songs had and still have bloodcurdling body and returning, capriocious structure that’s bone-chilling and mind-blowing at times, while frontman Dara Kiely fights upfront to vomit his eccentric lyrics. If your eardrums survive
this electric-chair experience, you’re ready for some more sonic Gilla Band blitzkrieg.

ALBUM


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Band: ADULT DVD
Who: EBM punk agitators
from Leeds, UK.

Album: ADULT DVD
Debut LP

Press info: “The album fuses Adult DVD’s love of hook laden indie, with
pulsing groove, 90’s acid house influence and an undeniable humour in
their songwriting.”


Album artwork

TUTV: Think/feel this. Electro-punk mixed with industrial thumps mixed with drum/bass bashing sledgehammers mixed with sonic booms. Sounds like thunder and lightning fireworks for (il)legal raves produced by techno experts Underworld. Bonkers, right?
You wham bam betcha.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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Band: NOTHING BUT THIEVES
Who: British Herculean rock squad
formed in 2012 in Essex.

Album: STRAY DOGS
Their 5th.

Press info: “Stray Dogs reconnects the Southend five-piece with their DIY roots.
The album was written in unison over a dedicated 5-month period, resulting in
the band creating their most liberating and cohesive work to date.”


Album artwork

TUTV: On 6 tracks NBT mess with your rotating head with untrammelled force,
storm-wracked noiz drills, hysterical guitars, drum/bass horsepower, and full-hearted vocals. On the other 6 tracks they go for more traditional rock sucker punches. It results
in a roller coaster record with a straightaway impact. Nothing but thrills.

SINGLE

ALBUM

Tour Dates 2027
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Artists: SOFT CELL
Who: British electro-pop champs featuring vocalist
Marc Almond and the late keyboardist Dave Ball.

Album: DANCETARIA
6th and final one.

The recordings were finished before co-founder
Dave Ball passed away last year in October.

Press info: “The final album is both a love letter to early 80s New York and
a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball. The album is a big, classy and playful
farewell after.”

TUTV: It’s a Soft Cell worthy goodbye, showing their heart and soul for dancefloor
entertainment once again, but, unfortunately, for the last time. Their magnificent 1981
gem “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” is playing in my head while writing this. Thank you for
the music, electronic dance pop champs.

SINGLE

ALBUM


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ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN Return With Strikingly Vital Album ‘APPLES FOR ISAAC’

Posted on by JL

22 September 2026


Photo Turn Up The Volume – Antwerp, Belgium

No expiration date for Liverpool‘s indestructible post-punk-pop rockers
ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN (one of my all-time fav bands, on record and
on stage), fronted by big mouth/songwriter Ian McCulloch.

They just launched their 13th longplayer, their first in 12 years,
titled APPLES FOR ISAAC. No idea who that Isaac guy is.


Album artwork

Press info: After years spent performing their immense catalog of classics to
audiences around the world, the Bunnymen have recorded an album that is as
bold as it is vulnerable, that perfectly captures the essence of what makes
the band so great.

All but one of the tracks features the late Blondie drummer
Clem Burke, who sadly passed away during its creation.

UNCUT (British music monthly magazine) says: “The album draws deep on Mac’s rich and strange memories of the 1970s, outside of the holy trinity of Bowie, Cohen and Reed. On an album keen not to outstay its welcome, you feel, quite reasonably, that this one should have run maybe three times as long.

‘If Apples For Isaac’ is the beginning of the descent, if it inaugurates the official start of the Bunnymen’s Late Style, this promises to be one of the great final seasons in British rock.

TUTV: Almost 50 years into their career, The Bunnymen come up with their first masterwork of the 21st Century after 4 average albums, but in the meantime, still delivering electrifying goods on their never-ending touring. It matches their 1999 LP
What Are You Gonna Do With Your Life?

Like that grand opus, this new one is a near-solo Ian McCulloch effort, musically
and lyrically. Longtime brother in arms, Will Sergeant‘s role is relatively minimal.

As the line “Is this the blues I’m singing?” goes in their 1980’s classic cracker Rescue
that sentiment is all over the place right here. At 67 McCulloch also gets gripped by melancholia, by memories of a lifetime. He translates them into his often cryptic, poetic,
and shadowy language and embeds them in a stunning series of astounding tunes enflamed by his eternally awesome voice.

The outcome is strikingly vital. Not one weak moment, and with Can’t Be Sold, Brussels Is Haunted, I’ll Be Your Sunshine, The Light That Surrounds You, Lab Rats Ran, and We Prayed In The Dark as the 24-karat gold nuggets.

At least a Top-5 album of the year. Hands down.

Singles.

– BRUSSELS IS HAUNTED –

– THE LIGHT THAT SURROUNDS YOU –

ALBUM


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SEASICK STEVE Channels His Frustration About His Country On His Perturbed Album ‘THE LAST SEASON OF AMERICA’

Posted on by JL

21 September 2026

Seasoned blues rocker SEASICK STEVE (born Steven Gene Leach 75 years ago in
Oakland, California) has his 14th LP, called THE LAST SEASON OF AMERICA out.

Press info: “In 2024, Steve and his wife Elisabeth took a road trip across America where
he witnessed the poverty and divisiveness in the context of the upcoming election that year. They were in a New Orleans club where a house band leader welcomed two Belgian musicians on stage by saying “welcome to the last season of America.”

This became the theme for the rest of their road trip and led to him writing the title track to the new album. A deeply personal, heartfelt reflection on the state of his home nation, The Last Season of America is a protest record in the truest sense.”

TUTV: The downfall of Trump’s Divided States Of Hate (“We got a criminal running this
place. He got lies written all over his face”) makes Seasick Steve angry, confused, mournful and combative. Except for MAGA, almost the whole wide world despises today’s America
for its current failure on many levels and its global, disastrous impact.

That’s the record’s main theme. Dark clouds hang all over Steve‘s doomful grooves
(Bad Things / Above Ground Boogie / Boottraps) and his brooding ballads (The Last
Season Of America / El Camino / Matilda From From Ottawa). He also goes after all
“useless motherfuckers and parasites in the music industry“.

Steve doesn’t rock out much. He spits and sneers on many occasions. He boils inside.
No, this is not a happy album. It reflects the ill-omened signs of this historic, damaging,
and dangerously tumultuous American era.

Yet, in the end, Steve still believes in a healing metamorphosis if we all get together and make it happen, as he sings on the funky footstomper Bad Things: “There’s bad things, but we still can change. If you believe in hope, we can rearrange. I still believe in the power of love.” It’s not over yet is Steve‘s underlying belief in a redeeming turnaround.

Again, and it still puzzles me, that ominous times are often a fruitful
inspiration for musicians to write/make engrossing records. One of
the best I heard all year long, musically, thematically and lyrically.

Singles.

– THE LAST SEASON OF AMERICA –

It’s the last season of America
And we’ll never watch again
The show that we loved

– BOOTSTRAPS –

ALBUM


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BLOC PARTY – English Indie Rockers Released Their Just Okay Album ‘ANATOMY OF A BRIEF ROMANCE’

Posted on by JL

11 September 2026

London‘s top-league indie rockers BLOC PARTY, fronted by charismatic
singer-songwriter Kele Okereke have their 7th longplayer, named
ANATOMY OF A BRIEF ROMANCE out.

Okereke wrote the record in the wake
of a more than decade-long relationship.

“Every lyric you’re hearing on this record was something that
actually happened to me. I had to tell the story, from start to
finish.”


📸 Charlie Pryor

Clash Magazine‘s verdict: “‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’ is a chronological account of a relationship from first glance to final goodbye. It may not be among their finest work, but ‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’ is surely a cathartic release for its composer and for listeners who see their own experiences reflected in it.”

TUTV: This new Bloc Party sounds like some old Bloc Party records, but not the great
ones (like the first 2) but the okay ones. Sonically, there are just not enough top-shelf tunes (except for the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed singles and a couple of other chipper ones), too many lukewarm pieces.

Lyrically, as aforementioned, all 14 songs (too many) serve to tell the story – from start
to finish – of a past Okereke relationship (so why didn’t you make it a solo one, Kele?). I always have mixed emotions about relationship albums. Does the partner like it that his/her love life goes public? What is her/his side of the story? And I’m not really interested in so many details of someone else’s romances. File this anatomy next to BC’s other just okay full-lengths.

Singles.

– COMING ON STRONGE –

– LOVE BOMBS –

– NOW WE CAN’T BE FRIENDS –

ALBUM


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ARAB STRAP – Scottish Trippy Electro Vets Rock Out And Calm Down On Their New Album ‘HALF-TOLD TALES’

Posted on by JL

10 September 2026


Photo by Luke Bovill

Artists: ARAB STRAP
Who: Trippy Scottish electro-pop vets, Aidan Moffat and
Malcolm Middleton (1995–2006, 2011, 2016–present).

Album: HALF-TOLD TALES
Their 9th.

UNCUT Magazine (UK): “Over Middleton’s fertile arrangements, Moffat’s
poetry offers the reassurance that good people still exist in the world.”

TUTV: It’s the Scots 3rd rad LP in 5 years, following 2021’s As Days Get Dark and 2024’s bizzarly titled I’m Totally Fine With It 👍 Don’t Give A Fuck Anymore 👍. Yep, they
have their musical hat trick in the pocket.

On Half-Told Stories, half of the tracks are designed to rock out and freak out while trying
to pogo your way around the dancefloor in your head. More and more, the long-serving duo’s mix of trippy electronics and bouncy rock undercurrents comes with pumped-up, pounding decibels, like you can experience, among other stompers, to the full extent on the 3 dumbfounding singles (hear below)

Then again, half the record contains laid-back breathers, letting poetic storyteller Moffat look out the window and reflect on all things weird whirling in his mind, with his trademark wit and dark humour.

Put everything – low and slow, fast and fervent – together and you know for a certified
fact that the Scots delivered another buzzworthy showpiece for end-of-the-year lists.

– YOU YOU YOU –

– GLAMOUR MAGIK –

– FIGHTING FOR YOU –

ALBUM


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INTERPOL Return With Grandeur And Mystique On New Album ‘THIS MIRROR WEIGHS A TON’

Posted on by JL

3 September 2026

Band: INTERPOL
Who: NYC’s psychedelic post-punk crusaders,
led by singer/songwriter Paul Banks, who have
drawn a lot of aural attention since 1997.

Album: THIS MIRROR WEIGHS A TON
Their 8th.

Press info: “Interpol’s first album in four years finds the band turning inward while continuing to move forward. Across the record, reflection, distortion and perception become a lens through which familiar shapes are refracted into something slightly
alien, as if seen through a different kind of light.”

Paul Banks told NME: “The drive of the record is a spirit of striving for elation,
enlightenment and clarity. I was born uncertain, that’s what keeps me intact”.


Album artwork

Mojo Magazine writes: “The results display more radio-friendly polish, while the grooves
are enhanced with percussive syncopation, and strings and woodwind are employed for
added sonic swirl.”

TUTV: Finally, after all these years, Interpol made an album that’s up there with their
first 2 outstanding ones, Turn Up The Bright Lights (2002) and Antics (2004).

This Mirror Weighs a Ton is, as the cliché goes, a return to form, stupendous form that is. The record excels because of its strong, utmost, dark romantic songs. Sterling songwriting, not one dull moment.

It feels like Paul Banks was wandering through his beloved New York City for many nights, absorbing its grandeur and also its shadowy mystique, and translating his observations and thoughts into commanding tunes, vocally, lyrically, and sonically.

The tracks’ pace shifts frequently with slow-progressing reveries (title track / Ever The Actor / Enemy / Sudden), amplified mid-tempo jams (Wounded Soldier / Darling Thoughts / Wake-up) and a couple of straight-up rockers (See Out Loud / Wings Of Fire).

Full aural ravishment for 53 minutes. A striking comeback achievement.

Singles.

– IRON CITY –

– THIS MIRROR WEIGHS A TON –

ALBUM


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