NOTHING BUT THIEVES - Stray Dogs

Distancing themselves from the dystopian, synthetic concept of "Dead Club City" (2023) and the apocalyptic visions of the preceding "Moral Panic" (2020), Nothing But Thieves return after three years with their fifth album, "Stray Dogs", which shifts the band's expressive center of gravity from social critique toward a more intimate, introspective dimension. With these twelve new songs, the Essex band aim to share a mature reflection on human connection, collective growth and the sense of belonging. It's an evolution visible not only in the lyrics but also in the musical dimension, through a very powerful sound that's thrown right in the listener's face from the first three tracks, placed in sequence, direct and adrenaline-fuelled: "Stray Dogs", "Testosterone" and "Evolution".

But "Stray Dogs" doesn't just offer less electronics and more guitars — a careful listen reveals the interesting vocal eclecticism of singer Conor Mason, one of the most gifted frontmen of his generation, able to range from a limpid falsetto to manipulated registers, seeking out new timbral approaches, as in the case of the dark "Death In The Backseat". Dirty, nervous guitars that don't undermine the band's ability to build the right radio hooks, which take shape in the brilliant "#5" and "A Different Kind Of Happiness", the emotional closer of a record that, even in its second half, offers numerous sharp moments, in "Baby Kool (Evelyn)", "AI.Jesus" and "American Confidence", relegating the only acoustic chapter to the five minutes of "I Needed You Then, I Need You Now". A week after release, they'd already claimed a podium spot on the UK's best-selling albums chart: Nothing But Thieves have hit the mark again.

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09/10/2026