JAMES have announced details of their new album to be released on 12 April via Virgin Music. YUMMY is the band’s 18th studio album and was produced by Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, Jon Hopkins, Imogen Heap, Regina Spektor) and mixed by Cenzo Townsend (Courteeners, The Specials, Everything Everything).
The first single from the record, IS THIS LOVE, is the album’s string-swept opener, blending cutting-edge synthetics with quintessential James anthemics, as complex a dissection of love in all its forms as singer Tim Booth pores over the pain, heat, battle, distance, fear, release and endurance of this emotion, in pursuit of its point and purpose. “Love as a bomb,” says Tim, “a Tsunami that rolls over our life as we cling to the wreckage of our peace of mind”.
Listen to “Is This Love” – BELOW:
The artwork for the single and the album has been directed and designed by Studio Fury, who have a rich history of creating iconic album covers, including art directing the campaign for the latest Rolling Stones album, Hackney Diamonds. Full details for the album, including the tracklist, formats and artwork, will follow in the coming weeks.
James heads out on their biggest-ever UK tour in June, including the new Co-op Live Arena in Manchester and culminating at The O2 in London, the first time the band has played in the 20,000-capacity venue.
2024 ARENA TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUESTS RAZORLIGHT
JUNE
Mon 03 ABERDEEN P&J Live
Wed 05 NEWCASTLE Utilita Arena
Fri 07 GLASGOW OVO Hydro
Sat 08 LEEDS First Direct Arena
Tue 11 CARDIFF Utilita Arena
Wed 12 BIRMINGHAM Utilita Arena
Fri 14 MANCHESTER Co-op Live
Sat 15 LONDON O2 Arena
Tim, Jim and Saul from James will also perform with Joe Duddell and an orchestra at Music Feeds Live: A Concert to Fight Food Poverty in aid of The Trussell Trust at Manchester O2 Apollo on 27 February. They join other artists, including Slow Readers Club, Lanterns on the Lake, The Farm and British Poet Laureate Simon Armitage with his band LYR. Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher will host the event alongside BBC 6 Music presenter Chris Hawkins, with Joe Duddell collaborating with the guests throughout the night.
Tickets and information here
In celebration of the band’s 40th Anniversary last year, James was honoured at the Ivor Novello Awards, receiving the PRS Music Icon Award, kickstarting a full year of celebration. This prestigious award was followed by the release of their orchestral double album Be Opened By The Wonderful, which reached #3 in the UK album charts in June and received the best reviews of their career. Throughout the summer, the band then headlined multiple UK and European festivals, culminating in two unique shows backed by a full orchestra and choir at The Odeon Of Herodes Atticus in Athens and a Special Guest headline slot at Latitude Festival.
With over 25 million albums sold over their 42-year career, Manchester legends James are amongst the most commercially and artistically – and most loved – alternative bands of their era. Having gathered a cult following around compulsively art rock gallops like Johnny Yen during the 80s, they broke through to mainstream chart success with their 1990 major label debut Gold Mother and went on to unite the early 90s with euphoric anthems of solace, love, sex, loss and frustration at the ills of the world – Come Home, Sit Down, Sound, Sometimes (Lester Piggott) and Laid. Their fifth album, Laid – the first of a string of James albums produced by Brian Eno – saw them break the US charts, while subsequent albums, including Whiplash (1997) Millionaires (1999) and Pleased To Meet You (2001), cemented their standing as a classic singles act, adding Tomorrow, She’s A Star, Just Like Fred Astaire and Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) to their formidable canon.
The band entered a six-year hiatus in December 2001, but such was the connection and fervency of their fanbase that their reunion in 2007 was met with such renewed success that it was as though they had never been away. Their 2008 comeback album Hey Ma became their sixth Top Ten album and their celebrated second era would earn them more Top 20 album placings and faster ticket sales than their whirlwind initial run. La Petite Mort – inspired by the deaths of singer Tim Booth’s mother and his close friend Gabrielle Roth – was critically acclaimed, while Girl At The End Of The World in 2016 returned them to the upper echelons of the album chart, where they’ve remained ever since. Living in Extraordinary Times (2018), All The Colours Of You (2021), and the new 18th studio album Yummy are amongst their finest and most prescient releases, dealing with US politics, AI technology and conspiracy theorists, all the while facing down mortality with an unbeaten smile and striving for love in a world spinning catastrophically out of control. Their 40th Anniversary in 2023 was celebrated with a tour of inspired orchestral reworkings of their classics – and a Top 3 album, Be Opened By The Wonderful – but this was far from a full stop.
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