Cooking Vinyl has released the single You May Offend, the title track from The Proclaimers’ new album. It is brothers Craig and Charlie Reid’s first album since 2022’s hugely acclaimed Denture’s Out. Their 13th studio album’s 12 tracks were written in Edinburgh and recorded at Monmouth’s legendary Rockfield Studios in a couple of days shy of three weeks, with producer Dave Eringa, their live band; Steven Christie (keyboards), Garry John Kane (bass), Zac Ware (guitars) and Clive Jenner (drums), and frequent guest guitarist, Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield. The album is out on the 11th of September and is available to preorder here.
The result is an album that they say is “concise as well as incisive, pushing on and digging into the issues and feelings that matter to them here, now and tomorrow, not yesterday.” As with the title track and first single, a lament for the state of free speech, with Charlie approving of the fact that the title can be taken two ways: “As in: ‘Look, careful what you do, you may offend someone.’ Or: ‘OK children, you may now offend.’ Is it an instruction or an invitation? Or a warning?”
The accompanying video (see below) was created by Emmy & BAFTA award winners, director Douglas Mackinnon, in partnership with Peter Anderson Animation. Across beaches, rooftops, city and country landscapes, listening machines hear everything in the world. Silent operators search for dangerous thoughts, listening for offensive statements and language. A surreal video about fear, surveillance, free speech, and tolerance.
The album is filled with powerful examinations of the themes of the day: the militarisation of Britain’s children from adolescence, the cluelessness of the country, and the fact that nobody in power takes any responsibility for their actions, the impotence and the hypocrisy of Western countries, not just Britain, and how lecturing the rest of the world about democracy, about freedom, about rights in the past may have been more acceptable when the West was on top, but no longer.
“You May Offend” Track list:
1) Knock It Down
2) But It Is
3) Easy Rhyme
4) You May Offend
5) Till The Ink Dries
6) The Grooming
7) A Little Bit Late
8) Anything
9) The Talent Show
10) There’s No Plan
11) In A Year Or Two
12) When You Get There
The Proclaimers UK Tour 2026:
11 July – Kings Lynn Festival Too
02 Aug – Wickham Festival
15 Aug – Letterkenny Summer Sessions
16 Aug – Belfast Custom House Square
21 Aug – Beautiful Days, Escot Park, Devon
23 Aug – Henley On Thames Rewind
28 Aug – Greenbelt Festival near Kettering
29 Aug – Sunshine Festival, Upton Upon Severn
30 Aug – Carfest Silverstone Circuit, Towcester
03 Sep – Lindisfarne Festival
15 Oct – Hull Connexin Arena LAST FEW TICKETS
17 Oct – Bradford Odeon LAST FEW TICKETS
20 Oct – Blackburn King George’s Hall LAST FEW TICKETS
27 Oct – Nottingham Concert Hall LAST FEW TICKETS
31 Oct – Plymouth Pavilions LAST FEW TICKETS
08 Nov – Swansea Arena LAST FEW TICKETS
10 Nov – Southend Cliff Pavilion LAST FEW TICKETS
12 Nov – Portsmouth Guildhall LAST FEW TICKETS
19 Nov – Dublin National Stadium
20 Nov – Limerick Spiegeltenten
19 Dec – Aberdeen P&J Arena
