Courting tell us about their mouthful of a new album: “We’ve balance our love of pop songs and more experimental stuff”

Courting have spoken to NME about their rowdy new single ‘Pause At You’ and their duality-themed third album ‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’. Check it out below, along with details of their 2025 UK headline tour.

• READ MORE: Courting – ‘New Last Name’ review: taking rock to new extremes

The Liverpudlian rockers – comprised of vocalist Sean Murphy-O’Neill, drummer Sean Thomas, guitarist Joshua Cope and bassist Connor McCann – have shared their rowdy and infectious new single ‘Pause At You’ today (November 20). The band describe the track as “a culmination of everything we’ve been working on over the last few years” and “an observation on night time paranoia mixed about with night out ecstasy – light outing, floor filling, tie undressing, rock.”

“It’s vague — paranoid but filled with ecstasy and energy,” frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill told NME. “I’m kind of back to writing less literal songs, so it is more of an abstract meditation on a lot of rock and roll clichés. It also calls back to some of the world-building that we explored in the last two albums.”

‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ follows their 2022 debut ‘Guitar Music‘ and 2024’s ‘New Last Name‘.

Speaking to NME about why the song felt like the perfect introduction to the record Murphy-O’Neill said: “We wanted to illustrate that we’re not yet finished evolving as a band. ‘Pause At You’ feels like the meeting point of all the different styles we’ve been experimenting with.”

Check out our full interview below, where Murphy-O’Neill told us about creating a body of work that is direct and straight, the role that duality plays within the album, and embarking on their first-ever US tour.

NME: Hello Sean. The album’s title ‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ is a mouthful. Where did the idea of calling it that come from?

Sean Murphy-O’Neill: “The album really revolves around a theme of duality, two titles, two figures on the cover, black and white. I loved the idea of taking a short, almost cliché classic title and then adding a post-ramble to it. I guess it kind of sums up our approach on this record: short and concise and at the same time considered and elaborate.

“Lust For Life’ is just such a great album title — Iggy Pop, Lana… so on and so on. I wanted to add our own little branch to a title which already has so much storied history and lore. In some ways our album does criss-cross over the line of a more ‘classic’ rock approach and then also into something more extreme and bizarre, so it made sense to have two titles.”

The record is peppered with references and Easter eggs for the fans. Where did the idea to include these moments come from?

“As a band, we always try to reward repeat listens, by burying things in our albums for our fans to discover keeps it fun for everybody. I love the idea of someone only noticing something after maybe 10 listen-throughs. Obviously, ‘Stealth Rollback’ is a reference to the Thorpe Park rollercoaster, that might be my favourite.”

A big theme on the album is keeping everything direct and straight to the point, unlike your other LPs which tended to lean towards something larger than life. Was there any specific moment that triggered this decision?

“We went so large with the concept on ‘New Last Name’ that it just felt rewarding to write songs without an underlying narrative. There obviously are still some ties between tracks, but it wasn’t the main focus this time. As a writer, a good way to keep making interesting art is to keep yourself on your toes, and we’ve already written a play. There’s no need to do a second instalment of that.”

Symmetry and duality play a massive role in the album, how did the idea for that concept come about?

“It started with the title, then we started realising that a lot of songs seemed to exist in pairs on the album. From then on, this influenced the artwork, colour scheme. We often benefit from creating a set of rules or guidelines to follow when writing an album. For example, ordering the songs alphabetically or as acts in a play.

“We have long been trying to balance our love of pop songs, and more ambitious, experimental stuff. This album is where they finally sit by side in the way that we want them to.”

The eight-song tracklist sees each song have a “twin song”. At what moment did you realise that this was something that was going to happen?

“It started with the idea of re-using sections throughout the album to serve as a general chorus or an underlying melodic motif. We noticed that rather than the songs all existing in the same stretch, it was more each song had a pair, or twin, that it seemed to share common factors with.

“After that realisation, we leaned into this during production — copying over drums and samples. This was also kind of our guideline manifesto of how to structure the album. If you draw a line down the middle of the eight tracks, they’re pretty symmetrical. I don’t want to spoil too much, some are hidden quite deep in the songs.”

You guys just wrapped up your first-ever run of US shows with Vundabar. What was the highlight of that tour?

“They’re lovely guys and their fans are great. We’ve had a great time just getting to play to new people every night. As cliche as it is, getting to exist within these cities for a little bit is just a lot of fun, there was a lot to see.”

You’re playing your debut New York headline show at Elsewhere. What are you looking forward to the most for that gig?

“We’re very excited to finally greet some of our own American fans and catch them up on 3 albums worth of material. They’ve got a lot to hear.”

‘Lust for Life, Or: ‘How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story’ is set for release on March 14 2025 via Lower Third. Check out the tracklist below and pre-order / pre-save the LP here.

The ‘Lust for Life …” tracklist is: 

1. ‘Intro’

2. ‘Stealth Rollback’

3. ‘Pause At You’

4. ‘Namcy’

5. ‘Eleven Sent (This Time)’

6. ‘After You’

7. ‘Lust For Life’

8. ‘Likely Place’

The band are also set to embark on a 2025 UK headline tour with tickets on sale from 9am on Friday (November 22) and available here. See the full list of dates below.

Courting’s 2025 UK headlining tour dates are: 

MARCH 

15 – Leeds – Dark Arts at Belgrave Music Hall

31 – Newcastle, The Grove

APRIL

1 – Glasgow – SWG3 (Warehouse)

3 – Nottingham – The Bodega

4 – Manchester – Gorilla

5 – Sheffield – Yellow Arch Studio

7- Bristol – Thekla

8 – Birmingham – Mama Roux’s

9 – London – Oslo