The Darkness have detailed a new album for 2025. The British rockers will share Dreams on Toast on March 28 via Cooking Vinyl.
"You know that thing when God's breath tickles your soul and tells you to create? Yeah, makes me giggle too. But you can't resist," says frontman Justin Hawkins of the follow-up to 2021's Motorheart. "God might not be the power she once was, but say what you like about her, she knows damn well that what the world needs now, is rock sweet rock. And who are we, mere mortals of extraordinary ability, to argue with the divine?
"So we knuckled down and thought really hard about the best of the best, the elite songs, the life-changing music of the ages. 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."
This all sounds much more appetizing than the British breakfast staple the LP's title plays on, and lead single "The Longest Kiss" doesn't disappoint. Very much in the vein of Electric Light Orchestra and Queen, you can hear the jaunty rocker alongside a visual in the player below.
Says Hawkins of the single, "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. The results are astounding. We're all very proud of this."
Last year, the Darkness celebrated 20 years of their debut album Permission to Land, and they're recently celebrating that LP's "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" rocketing back up the charts thanks to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were caught on camera belting it out at the US Open.