If you thought that everybody’s favourite indie trio were getting bored, you were wrong. The Wombats have today (October 10) announced they will be releasing a sixth studio album titled ‘Oh! The Ocean’.
Set for release on February 21st, 2025, the chart-toppers have also announced a six-date UK arena tour in March 2025, and shared the first single taken from the LP – ‘Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want To Come’.
Two years since scoring their debut UK no.1 album with ‘Fix Yourself Not The World’, The Wombats are back and bigger than ever. Oh! The Ocean trembles with the confessional emotional honesty that makes the Liverpool band’s music as cathartic and relatable as it is catchy and playful, to their continuously growing young fanbase.
The three-piece took 50 new songs to Echo Park, LA, in July 2024 for six weeks of sessions with new producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Wallows, Death Cab for Cutie) to create their most sonically adventurous album yet. The title is inspired by a revelatory trip to the beach frontman Matthew “Murph” Murphy took on a family holiday.
Speaking on the experience, Murph says: “I’ve been to many beaches, seas and coasts over the years but for some reason it felt like the first time I had ever seen it and was truly present.
“There was this revelation that I had been living a life caught up in my own head, or in some kind of racing helmet or with blinkers on. It was really a potent experience.
“I felt like I saw everything new for the first time, and was aware that I had been so selfish to not take in how crazy the world and life is. I’d been caught up in my own BS for way too long.
“The album offers up some internal questions like: why are my head and body disconnected all the time? Why am I incapable at times of seeing any form of beauty in the world or in others? Why do I expect the world to conform to my will? Why do I never stop and smell the flowers?”
The album’s first offering ‘Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come’, premiered as the Hottest Record on BBC Radio 1’s New Music Show with Jack Saunders on Tuesday (October 8th). It delves into lush tropical pop, falsetto funk and futuristic orchestral textures as lead singer Murph details, but also comes to terms with, his anti-social side.
Murph says on the track: “[It] is about constantly defaulting to a ‘Lone Wolf’ mindset, and what the real life consequences of that may be.” This relatable sentiment is reflected in the lyrics: “Sorry I’m late, I didn’t want to come, It’s not that I hate you, I just hate everyone.”
The Wombats will be setting out on their biggest ever UK Arena Tour a month after the album release, kicking off in Nottingham on March 18th, and then onto London, Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow and Leeds. Tickets for the tour go on general sale at 10am BST on Friday 19th October here.
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Featured image by Julia Friedland-Godfrey
