HIMALAYAS announce new album 'BAD STAR'
‘AFTERLIFE’
BRAND NEW SINGLE RELEASED
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
HIMALAYAS have announced their new albumBAD STARfor release on April 25thvia Nettwerk Music Group. The album is available to pre-order nowhere.
Marking the announcement the Cardiff rock band have released the brand new single‘Afterlife’, a cavernous pensive anthem with bold, strutting riffs, which reflects on the promise of great things being just over the horizon, but always out of reach. The explosiveapocalyptic videodirected by Yoni Ben-Haim features the band delivering a scorching performance among a fiery decimating meteor shower.
Regarding the single frontman Joe Williams says,“Everyone prays for something better, or thinks there’s something better coming once you get past the right now. I wanted to explore the idea that maybe there won't be something better than what we have currently and embracing that.”
‘Afterlife’ follows a string of successful singles taken from the forthcoming albumBAD STARincluding the energetic thrashy groove of ‘Hung Up’, the creepy alt-rock of ‘Nothing Higher’, the ferocious stomp of ‘Cave Paintings’ (selected in Radio 1’s 2024 Big Hitters) as well another hit with ‘What If…?’ which reached No.2 in the Kerrang Magazine Chart while being added to the Kerrang Radio Playlist as well as receiving support from Radio X and across Radio 1 from the Rock Show, Indie Show and BBC Introducing.
HIMALAYAS kicked off 2025 in equally impressive fashion, spotlighted in Kerrang Magazine’s Sound Of 2025 selections while also being championed as the Sunday Mirror’s Rising Stars.
Their second albumBAD STARfinds HIMALAYAS – Joe Williams (vocals/guitar), Mike Griffiths (guitar/vocals), Louis Heaps (bass) and James Goulbourn (drums) – expanding far beyond the indie-rock of their first worksFrom Hell To Herein 2023, withBAD STARnow seeing the band taking in influence from Queens Of The Stone Age, Radiohead, Royal Blood and Foo Fighters.
Working with producer Pete Hutchings (Royal Blood, Nothing But Thieves, Skindred) the result onBAD STARis 10 tracks that finds the band ooze with confidence, with a sharp skill in inventive but catchy riffs, slinking rhythms, and an ever-present sense of vastness of both sound and vision.
From the slow-burn of Pink Floyd-ish opener ‘Beneath The Barrel’ to the enormous, distortion-drenched riffs of ‘Twisted Reflections’,BAD STARis an album that twists and turns, never serving up the same thing twice.
“The themes are based upon the disaster of men and the fact that we create our own problems a lot of the time,”says Joe.“Disaster happens, and that comes through in every facet of the album, whether that's a positive thing or negative thing.”
“We didn't go into writing it thinking we’d say this, but it turned out, everything's fucked,”adds Mike.“That's how all the songs ended up going: Everything's fucked.”
The striking decimated clay face on theBAD STARartwork has been sculpted by jsl7.studio and photographed by Andy Ford.
Regarding the artwork Joe says,“We wanted to create a sense of disaster and beauty and detail with every new viewing. We wanted to show a contrast of beauty and stillness to disaster and destruction. We spoke with Jen at jsl7.studio for a while about influences and inspirations like the Terra Cotta army, the casts of Pompeii and both Italian and Greek statues. I really wanted to portray the power and might of disaster and the contrast of stillness against that, which is something that I believe Jen has delivered in abundance.”
HIMALAYAS are on a dizzying upward trajectory since the release of their debut albumFrom Hell To Here,which quickly proved them to be a vital new band in the UK rock scene.
It has achieved over 93 million streams and led them to work with the very upper echelons of rock royalty, including co-writing with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson on the recent single ‘V.O.V’, while also being asked to support Foo Fighters at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium last summer. The band are no strangers to big stages, and prior to supporting Foo Fighters they have performed to capacity arena crowds with Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics.
2025 will see the band hitting the road again on a global scale. They have been announced in the first wave of artists for SXSW 2025 in Austin, Texas and fans can expect more touring news from HIMALAYAS to follow soon.
BAD STARis a record which reaches for enormous heights, while also keeping a very human heart. It is a record that dazzles with its ability to scale similar musical heights to Muse or Queens or Foos, fully embodying, as James puts it,“what a rock band should sound like without looking backwards”. They’ve managed just that.BAD STARwill send Himalayas supernova.
BAD STARTRACK LISTING
Beneath The Barrel
Hung Up
Cave Paintings
What If…?
Heavy Weather
Surrender
Nothing Higher
Afterlife
Twisted Reflections
A Brand New God
