The Darkness have announced their eighth studio album, Dreams on Toast, arriving in March 2025. The album’s lead single “The Longest Kiss” is out now.
Frontman Justin Hawkins shares in a press release: “Misty Orchards! That’s not my porn name, that’s the kind of scenery that I love. I awakened to such a vista in the delightful Scottish highland town of Nairn on the morning that inspiration for ‘The Longest Kiss’ lyric struck. I was bleary eyed and locked in an unending embrace with my (mid)life partner. Weird that I can still sing, but that’s a testament to the resilience of humans, especially lead singers … The music itself is a piano-led composition, the chorus of which my brother and I came up with after he’d taken a long time to empty his bladder during some impressive pub endurance. The verses were transposed from a song I’ve been working on for decades as part of a musical about the collapse of the Lowestoft fishing industry, called ‘The Collapse of the Lowestoft Fishing Industry.’ The musical isn’t finished yet. But ‘The Longest Kiss’ is.”
Hawkins said that the band tapped into “the elite songs, the life-changing music of the ages” to create ‘Dreams on Toast’: “Then we popped out a dozen bangers before lunch. And these bangers we present to you here, wallowing in an aromatic aural ragu, served atop the charred remains of our envious contemporaries… ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dreams on Toast!”
The Darkness will also be on the road in support of the new album with a March 2025 UK tour, highlighted by a finale at OVO Arena Wembley on March 29th in London.
You can pre-order Dreams on Toast on vinyl, CD, and cassette via the band’s online store.
Listen to ‘The Longest Kiss’ –here.
Editorial credit: Bruno Ismael Silva Alves / Shutterstock.com