Gang of Youths announce new album Compañero for March 12, 2027, with North American tour dates
The Australian band's fourth album, produced by Jung Kim, has an 11-song tracklist, a new single called "Benny's Video" and a spring tour that takes in Coachella.
Photo: Mr. Rossi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Gang of Youths will release their fourth album, Compañero, on March 12, 2027. The band announced it on November 11 with a new single, "Benny's Video", and a North American tour that opens in Boston on March 17. Pre-orders are open.
Compañero follows angel in realtime. from 2022 and is released through Mosy Recordings, Sony Music Australia, RCA in the UK and Arista in the US. The title is Spanish for companion or comrade. Jung Kim is credited as primary producer and engineer.
A record about other people
Frontman David Le'aupepe has said the songs move away from the confessional writing of the last album, which drew on his father's death and his family history. Compañero is more fictional. "I didn't need to channel all this brutality anymore," he told Consequence. He cited Leonard Cohen, Warren Zevon, Tom Waits, David Berman and Bill Callahan as influences, and spoke of the American Southwest, mid-century crooners and late-1960s Laurel Canyon folk-rock.
"Benny's Video" is named after Michael Haneke's 1992 film. Le'aupepe told Rolling Stone Australia he liked the director's refusal to tell the audience how to feel: "I liked the detachment. I liked the non-judgment." The track pairs synthesizers with violin, and he named early-1990s New Order as a reference point, describing "a lot of sorrow encased in joy". It is the second single after "Things Take Time", released in August and the band's first new music in four years.
The 11 songs
The tracklist: "This Machine, It's a Classic", "Things Take Time", "YeYu", "Manilla '98", "Street Value", "Desert Life Museum", "Benny's Video", "Major Arcana", "Ants Control the World", "Which Side of the River Are You On?" and "Future Be Kind".
Sessions were held in the UK at the Decoy, Redchurch, Urchin and Hoxa studios as well as the band's own Cloud 9 studio, with the group playing live in the room as often as possible. Kim said the approach was often "quite whimsical".
Dates, tickets and the Coachella weekend
The headline run starts at the Royale in Boston on March 17 and, according to Dork, ends at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, on April 3. Consequence lists stops in Brooklyn, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Toronto (two nights), Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix and Las Vegas, and counts 19 dates in all. It also reports a second-weekend Coachella set in Indio, California, in April. Outlets differ on where the dated run finishes, so check the band's site for the final routing.
An artist presale starts on Wednesday, November 18 at 10 a.m. local time. General sale follows on Friday, November 20 at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster and the band's website.
Home shows and a long gap
There is no Australian tour yet. The band headline Party in the Paddock in Tasmania on February 5, 2027, and Le'aupepe said "We'll do other things in Australia for sure". A small Thirroul show sold out in 45 seconds and two Sydney Opera House nights sold out within minutes, Rolling Stone Australia reported.
Consequence notes that the band cancelled a North American tour in 2022 because of health problems affecting Le'aupepe. Having lived in the UK for more than a decade while still calling Sydney home, he also told Rolling Stone Australia that he once believed he was finished as a recording artist and now feels he has "loads of records" left.
