👻 Echo & The Bunnymen Announce First New Album in 12 Years –

Apples For Isaac

Liverpool’s post-punk legends return with haunting new single

“Brussels Is Haunted”

🎸🖤

After twelve long years wandering through the musical wilderness, Echo & The Bunnymen are officially back with a brand-new studio album.

The Liverpool legends will release their thirteenth studio record, Apples For Isaac, on 18 September 2026 through BMG.

It marks the band’s first collection of entirely new material since 2014’s Meteorites — and to give fans their first taste of what is lurking around the corner, they have unleashed the brilliantly titled new single “Brussels Is Haunted.”

That’s right, butt. The Bunnymen are back, Brussels has apparently got ghosts, and British alternative rock just became considerably more atmospheric. 👻

🍎

Apples For Isaac

Arrives This September

Echo & The Bunnymen have never been a band interested in rushing things.

Their music has always lived in the shadows: dramatic, mysterious and drenched in enough shimmering guitar to make a rainy Liverpool evening feel like the opening scene of a gothic film.

Now, after more than a decade without a new studio album, Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant and company are preparing to begin another chapter.

Apples For Isaac will feature 11 new tracks, combining the familiar darkness and widescreen atmosphere that made Echo & The Bunnymen one of Britain’s most distinctive bands with fresh ideas gathered during their lengthy absence from the studio-album battlefield.

Frontman Ian McCulloch has explained that the delay was partly connected to the disruption caused by the pandemic, but also came from his determination to make sure every lyric carried genuine meaning — or was at least suitably cryptic.

And let’s be honest: an Echo & The Bunnymen record without cryptic lyrics would be like a Welsh festival without sideways rain. It simply wouldn’t feel right, mun. 🌧️🎸

McCulloch has also suggested that the completed record sounds remarkably close to how he originally imagined it in his head, which should have longtime fans reaching enthusiastically for the headphones.

👻 Enter

“Brussels Is Haunted”

The first single from the album, “Brussels Is Haunted,” immediately sounds like it belongs in the Echo & The Bunnymen universe.

The song is filled with European imagery, late-night memories and references to Belgian music and culture, creating something that feels like a half-remembered adventure through smoky clubs, grand city squares and suspiciously haunted drinking establishments.

Musically, it carries that unmistakable Bunnymen atmosphere.

Will Sergeant’s guitar work shimmers and twists around the song while McCulloch delivers his vocals with the weathered cool of a man who has spent decades making melancholy sound effortlessly magnificent.

It feels nostalgic without becoming trapped in the past — familiar enough to satisfy fans of the classic records, but alive enough to suggest that this comeback is about far more than simply revisiting former glories.

There’s darkness, melody and mystery bubbling beneath the surface.

Basically, it’s exactly what you would hope for from a song called “Brussels Is Haunted.”

🥁 A Special Final Contribution From Clem Burke

The album also carries an enormous emotional significance.

The late Clem Burke, legendary drummer with Blondie and a longtime friend of Ian McCulloch, performed on ten of the album’s eleven tracks before his death in April 2025.

Burke was described by the band as an integral part of the album’s creation.

His presence gives Apples For Isaac an additional layer of importance, standing as one of the celebrated drummer’s final major recorded contributions.

Burke was never merely someone keeping time at the back of the stage. He was a powerhouse whose playing helped drive some of the most recognisable songs to emerge from the punk and new-wave eras.

Knowing that his drumming runs through almost the entire record makes the forthcoming album both a comeback and a heartfelt musical tribute.

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Apples For Isaac

Tracklist

The complete tracklist is:

1. Take Me By The Hand
2. Can’t Be Sold
3. Brussels Is Haunted
4. I’ll Be Your Sunshine
5. Hijacked
6. The Honey
7. Unstoppable Force
8. The Light That Surrounds You
9. Lab Rats Ran
10. Asimov
11. We Prayed In The Dark

Even the song titles feel unmistakably Bunnymen.

There are prayers, surrounding lights, unstoppable forces, laboratory rats and haunted European capitals. It sounds less like an album tracklist and more like the contents of a beautifully strange gothic novel discovered behind the bar of an old Liverpool pub.

And we are completely here for it. 🍺🖤

🌙 Twelve Years Since

Meteorites

Apples For Isaac follows the band’s 2014 studio album Meteorites.

While Echo & The Bunnymen have remained active as a live force during the years since, continuing to perform their enormous catalogue around the world, the absence of brand-new material has been impossible to ignore.

Twelve years is an eternity in modern music.

Entire scenes have risen, vanished and returned wearing vintage T-shirts during that time.

However, Echo & The Bunnymen have never operated according to anyone else’s timetable. Their music moves at its own pace, drifting somewhere between post-punk, alternative rock, psychedelia and glorious cinematic gloom.

A new Bunnymen album therefore feels less like another routine release and more like the reopening of a long-locked room.

The lights are flickering, the guitars are echoing and something mysterious is definitely moving behind the curtains.

🎸 A Catalogue Built for the Ages

Formed in Liverpool in 1978, Echo & The Bunnymen became one of the most influential British bands to emerge from the post-punk explosion.

Alongside Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant, the classic line-up featured bassist Les Pattinson and drummer Pete de Freitas, creating a sound that was instantly recognisable.

Across albums including Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here, Porcupine and the majestic Ocean Rain, the band produced music that was sweeping, romantic, strange and occasionally enormous.

Their catalogue includes timeless tracks such as:

• “The Killing Moon”
• “Lips Like Sugar”
• “The Cutter”
• “Rescue”
• “Bring On the Dancing Horses”
• “Seven Seas”
• “Nothing Lasts Forever”

Those songs have travelled far beyond the era that created them, influencing generations of indie, alternative and gothic rock musicians.

Yet the arrival of Apples For Isaac proves that Echo & The Bunnymen are not content to exist solely as a heritage act playing the hits.

There is still new territory to explore.

🎤 Live Dates on the Horizon

The band are also preparing for several major UK appearances later in 2026.

Echo & The Bunnymen will perform two nights at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London on 22 and 23 September, just days after the album’s release.

They will then head north for two December shows at Glasgow’s legendary Barrowland Ballroom on 20 and 22 December.

Hearing the new material alongside classics such as “The Killing Moon” and “The Cutter” should make for some properly magical evenings.

And considering the Barrowland’s famous atmosphere, Glasgow might become the second haunted European city on this album campaign. 👻

🤘 The Riff Report Verdict

A twelve-year wait creates some seriously heavy expectations.

However, “Brussels Is Haunted” suggests Echo & The Bunnymen have returned with their sense of mystery, melody and dramatic grandeur fully intact.

This does not feel like a band lazily dusting off an old formula. It sounds like musicians reconnecting with the atmosphere that made them special while allowing age, experience and loss to shape the next stage of their story.

The involvement of Clem Burke adds genuine emotional weight, while the promise of eleven new songs makes Apples For Isaac one of the most intriguing British alternative-rock releases of 2026.

The moon is still killing.

The guitars are still shimmering.

And after twelve years away, Echo & The Bunnymen are finally ready to step back into the shadows.

Welcome back, lads. It’s been far too long. 🖤🎸👻

💬 Are You Excited for the New Album?

What do you think of “Brussels Is Haunted”?

Are you ready for the first new Echo & The Bunnymen album in twelve years, and which classic track would you love to hear alongside the new material on tour?

Crank up the single, grab your best black jacket and let us know.

Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. Zero Apologies. 🤘🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿