Courting will release third album Lust for Life just a year after their sophomore record, New Last Name.
The band is set to release Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ on March 14. The band confirmed they would move to a more direct sound for their third album.
Vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill confirmed the change in tone, saying: “We wanted to keep everything incredibly direct – to hit everyone in the face and leave.” The album was described by the frontman as a “real culmination of everything we’ve done.” O’Neill added: “‘Lust for Life’ is such a great title. It’s used so often because it means so much. Ours is as much Iggy Pop as it is Lana Del Rey. Everything we do is like a collage.
“I was bored of overthinking. This album is what it is – something immediate, no excess. Two titles, artwork in two colours, which features two figures, and has eight tracks, all set up with a twin structure. The opening track, is mirrored by the closer, ‘Likely place,’ with the same looping motif played first with strings, then with a sharp electric guitar buzz.”
The announcement comes alongside the release of lead single, Pause At You. O’Neill said of the single: “Pause at You is a culmination of everything we’ve been working on over the last few years – an observation on night time paranoia mixed about with night out ecstasy. Light outing, floor filling, tie undressing, rock.”
A full tracklist for the upcoming album, Lust for Life, can be found below.
1. Intro
2. Stealth Rollback
3. Pause At You
4. Namcy
5. Eleven Sent (This Time)
6. After You
7. Lust For Life
8. Likely Place
The band also confirmed a UK tour for 2025, with Courting set to play Leeds’ Belgrave Music Hall the day after the album releases, as well as gigs in Sheffield, Birmingham and London. A full list of dates can be found below.
15th March – Leeds – Dark Arts at Belgrave Music Hall
31st March – Newcastle, The Grove
1st April – Glasgow – SWG3 (Warehouse)
3rd April – Nottingham – The Bodega
4th April – Manchester – Gorilla
5th April – Sheffield – Yellow Arch Studio
7th April – Bristol – Thekla
8th April – Birmingham – Mama Roux’s
9th April – London – Oslo
Lust for Life comes just shy of a year after New Last Name was announced, with the band offering fans the chance to buy a longsword from their merch store. The £15,000 longsword has not yet been sold and is only available to those residents over the age of 18 living in England or Wales.
A product description reads: “Are you rich? Do you regularly partake in medieval roleplaying? Are you an extra in HBO’s Game of Thrones? Celebrate the release of Courting’s sophomore album ‘New Last Name’, with a real, and beautiful English longsword.”
