Amyl and the Sniffers have announced Cartoon Darkness, their third album (and first in three years), which will be out October 25 via B2B Records / Virgin Music Group. They made the album with producer Nick Launay, who’s worked with everyone from Midnight Oil and INXS to Nick Cave and IDLES, at Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles in early 2024.
“Cartoon Darkness is about climate crisis, war, AI, tiptoeing on the eggshells of politics, and people feeling like they’re helping by having a voice online when we’re all just feeding the data beast of Big Tech, our modern-day god,” says singer Amy Taylor. “It’s about the fact that our generation is spoon-fed information. We look like adults, but we’re children forever cocooned in a shell. We’re all passively gulping up distractions that don’t even cause pleasure, sensation or joy, they just cause numbness.”
Amy adds, “Cartoon Darkness is driving headfirst into the unknown, into this looming sketch of the future that feels terrible but doesn’t even exist yet. A childlike darkness. I don’t want to meet the devil half-way and mourn what we have right now. The future is cartoon, the prescription is dark, but it’s novelty. It’s just a joke. It’s fun.”
The album includes “U Should Not Be Doing That,” which was released as a single earlier this year, and with the album announce comes snarling new single “Chewing Gum.” Taylor says, “The adversity of life is desire never fulfilled. Doing the dishes cleaning, but never the one eating the meal, so close but it’s never enough, and trying to celebrate the ignorance of youth despite it being robbed away, so choosing ignorance, choosing to be dumb and choosing love, despite everything, choosing bad decisions for love, for life, because it is short, or is it long? Surrendering to joy, surrendering to being a vision, in your own power, because making decisions based on emotion rather than logic is liberating, and despite the external inferno, you walk away unscathed, through flames, burnt but only superficially, unstopped, unaffected, unhuman. Life is work, life is not free, we can never work enough because the end goal doesn’t exist, so all we can do is choose to be wrong.”
Listen to “Chewing Gum” below.
Amyl and the Sniffers just wrapped up dates with Foo Fighters that also included a few headline club shows. They’ll be on a UK/EU tour this fall, and will play a big show opening for Fontaines D.C. next July in London’s Finsbury Park. All dates are listed below.
CARTOON DARKNESS
JERKIN
CHEWING GUM
TINY BIKINI
BIG DREAMS
IT’S MINE
MOTORBIKE SONG
DOING IN ME HEAD
PIGS
BAILING ON ME
U SHOULD NOT BE DOING THAT
D0 IT DO IT
GOING SOMEWHERE
ME AND THE GIRLS
AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS – 2024/2025 TOUR DATES
NOV 5TH – DUBLIN – NATIONAL STADIUM
NOV 6TH – GLASGOW – 02 ACADEMY
NOV 7TH – NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE – NX SOLD OUT
NOV 9TH – MANCHESTER – MANCHESTER ACADEMY SOLD OUT
NOV 10TH – BIRMINGHAM 02 – ACADEMY
NOV 11TH – BRISTOL – 02 ACADEMY SOLD OUT
NOV 13TH – LONDON – ROUNDHOSE
NOV 14TH – LONDON – ROUNDHOUSE SOLD OUT
NOV 15TH – LONDON – ROUNDHOUSE SOLD OUT
NOV 17TH – BRUSSELS – ANCIENNE SOLD OUT
NOV 18TH – UTRECHT – TIVOLIVREDENBERG SOLD OUT
NOV 19TH – COLOGNE – CARLSWERK VICTORIA SOLD OUT
NOV 21ST – COPENHAGEN – VEGA SOLD OUT
NOV 22ND – HAMBURG – GROBE FREIHEIT 36 SOLD OUT
NOV 23rd – BERLIN – COLUMBIAHALLE SOLD OUT
NOV 25TH – MUNICH – TONHALIE
NOV 26TH – LAUSANNE – LES DOCKS
NOV 27TH – PARIS – OLYMPIA
NOV 29TH – ATHENS – FLOYD
JULY 5TH – LONDON – FINSBURY PARK SUPPORTING FONTAINES DC