Teenage Fanclub have announced their new album Do Not Dare To Dream, due out on 9th October via Merge Records. The band’s 13th studio album follows the 2023 release Nothing Lasts Forever and finds the group continuing to evolve. To accompany today’s announcement, the band has shared the lead single Day In The Sun, alongside a video filmed on location at Black Bay Studio on Great Bernera by Donald Milne. See below to enjoy.Teenage Fanclub don’t dare to dream on new album and tour this autumn
Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley have been making music together in Teenage Fanclub for 37 years, and while some parts of being in a band have gotten easier with time, the simplest things can still trip them up. According to Blake, “It’s difficult when it comes to, y’know, coming up with a name for an album. Especially after you’ve made 12 of them.”
Teenage Fanclub’s 13th album takes its name from one of Blake’s songs on the record, I Do Not Dare To Dream, Blake says that the title is meant to mock those memes that urge people to “dare to dream,” which to him are “kind of ridiculous… I don’t think the world works that way.” Reflecting on the album’s outlook, McGinley notes, “We can still be cheerful and optimistic in the face of things not being great.”
Recorded at Black Bay Studio on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera, the band’s most remote recording location yet, which anecdotally helped the band focus on the work but also put them in a place of awe, surrounded as they were by the crashing sea and ancient ruins. The band likes to take advantage of what a studio has available to use, and at Black Bay, they found a Domus church organ and a lot of different synthesizers. The album can be preordered here.
Joined by longtime members Euros Childs, Francis Macdonald, and David McGowan, this quintet has played together long enough now that neither of Teenage Fanclub’s principal songwriters and guitarists feels the need to fuss over their songs or work up arrangements before they enter the studio. They’d rather wait for the rest of the group’s input. As Blake puts it, “I think what happens is you just move from one thing into the next and before you know it, 30 years have passed. McGinley adds: “Yeah, it’s been a while since we started doing this thing we do, but to us it feels like no time at all. In the place where we made the record, people would have been singing thousands of years ago. Life is short, but music is eternal.”
“Do Not Dare To Dream” Tracklisting:
1. There Was You
2. Tomorrow People
3. Over and Over
4. Be With You Tonight
5. The Same Air
6. I Do Not Dare To Dream
7. Take Time
8. Day In The Sun
9. Somewhere To Land
10. Young And Wise
Teenage Fanclub 2026 UK Tour Dates
Tuesday 3 November – Cambridge – Junction
Wednesday 4 November – Bristol – Trinity
Thursday 5 November – Brighton – Concorde 2
Friday 6 November – London – Hackney Church *(SOLD OUT!)*
Saturday 7 November – Manchester – New Century Hall
Monday 9 November – Leeds – Project House
Tuesday 10 November – Newcastle – Boiler Shop
Wednesday 11 November – Aberdeen – Lemon Tree
Friday 13 November – Glasgow – Saint Luke’s *(SOLD OUT!)*
Saturday 14 November – Glasgow – Saint Luke’s *(SOLD OUT!)*
Sunday 15 November – Edinburgh – La Belle Angele *(SOLD OUT!)*
Monday 16 November – Belfast – Empire Music Hall
Tuesday 17 November – Dublin – Academy
Thursday 19 November – Cardiff – Y Plas
Friday 20 November – Birmingham – The Crossing
Saturday 21 November – Glasgow – SWG3 Warehouse
