October Drift announce new album ‘Blame The Young’

Highly acclaimed indie rock collective October Drift have announced their new album Blame The Young. Their third album will be released on September 27^th 2024 via Physical Education Recordings and is available to pre-order now here.

With the album announcement the band have released the new single ‘Demons’ which premiered this morning on BBC 6Music with Chris Hawkins who dubbed the song “another soaring anthem” from October Drift.

The lyric “Lay all your demons down on me” perfectly sums up the essence of ‘Demons’. It underscores the song’s message of solidarity and mutual support, emphasising the strength found in unity even when both individuals feel incomplete. Set in their energetic alt-rock/shoegaze wall of sound, it’s an anthem of togetherness.

Regarding the single frontman and guitarist Kiran Roy says, “It’s about being there for someone. Getting everything off your chest. It’s about protection – “your castle is my ribcage, your gates are my teeth”. It’s being a sounding board, being a punch bag even. It’s about finding solace in another person, and maybe both feeling incomplete or having things weighing them down but being stronger together – “rest in my ruin” / “rest in your ruin”, “sleep on a piece of broken heart”.

“Life has its challenges, and it throws you punches. The loss of the candyfloss optimism of youth – it dissolves as soon as it touches the tongue. It can relate to friends and family too, and the band even, being able to talk to each other and be open about things going on in our personal lives or how we have been feeling. It’s about being honest with each other and being part of a healing process. It is part of this journey of growth and understanding and connections.”

This message of strength in numbers and unity with your loved ones, as well as the wider world, ripples throughout the new album. On Blame The Young, Kiran Roy (vocals/guitar), Alex Bispham (bass), Chris Holmes (drums/vocals), Dan Young (guitar) have created an imposing record, full of powerful songs which for the band are their most personal yet. However, these songs are also universal, immediately captivating on a wider level spearheaded by Roy’s deft inclusive songwriting alongside the band’s infectious riffs, hooks and harmonies that run throughout the new record.

“I Don’t Belong Anywhere was a difficult record to make,” Kiran says about their last album. “We wrote and recorded it ourselves during the lockdown in our studio and it has that claustrophobic and isolated feel to it. We also felt some pressure to get the thing written and to live up to the first. This third album I think has felt easier and more fun to make. We took ourselves to an Airbnb barn conversion on the Somerset levels, it was great to be in a different environment and I think you can hear that it was a lighter experience making this record.

“In some ways a lot has changed amongst us since the last album. I think we’ve all grown as people. We’ve all made changes in our lives. There’s a sense of a journey, even pilgrimage, in this new album. I say pilgrimage because there is an almost spiritual element – it’s sometimes hard to explain why we write songs and what it means for people to hear them and to play them live and have people sing them back. We’re not quite sure what the end goal is, it’s as much about the process and the journey and finding out about ourselves and expressing ourselves as it is making connections, communities and giving voice and solidarity and escape to others. It’s an escape for us too, and a route out of the regular.”

What is clear on Blame The Young, sonically, thematically, and “spiritually” as Kiran puts it, is that on their third album October Drift have truly come into their own, comfortable in their own skin, yet while looking inward they’ve created an important record to spark connection and understanding on a much wider level which is sure to prove a hit with fans old and new.

October Drift laid the marker for the new album with the recent release of the lead single, album opener, and title track, which quickly proved a radio hit being added to the Radio X playlist while also receiving strong support across BBC 6Music. It proved a live hit too as the band treated fans to the single on their tour across the UK in April and also at their sold out debut headline show in Paris last month.

To celebrate the forthcoming album the band have now announced their largest headline show to date and will play London’s Scala on November 5^th 2024. Tickets are selling quickly and are on sale now via Gigantic here.

BLAME THE YOUNG TRACK LISITING

1. Blame The Young
2. Demons
3. Nothing Makes Me Feel (The Way You Do)
4. Wallflower
5. Don’t Care
6. Everybody Breaks
7. Borderline
8. Tyrannosaurus Wreck
9. Hollow
10. Heal
11. Not Running Anymore