Iconic 00s rock bands join forces for UK tour after new album-Meghna Amin-Entertainment – Metro

The Darkness have announced a new album and a 2025 UK tour (Picture: Diogo Baptista/SOPA Images/Shutterstock)

The Darkness have announced their new album Dreams On Toast and a 2025 UK tour.

The I Believe in a Thing Called Love rockers are set to release their eighth studio album next March that has been inspired by ‘the life-changing music of the ages’.

Across the 17 dates, kicking off at Ipswich Regent Theatre on March 7 2025 and wrapping up their gigs at London’s OVO Arena Wembley on March 29, the musicians will be accompanied by Northern Irish rockstarsAsh.

The trio, fronted by Tim Wheeler, formed in the 90s and continued producing music throughout the noughties, with several chart-topping records.

It’s not the first time these two forces have collided, as Ash toured with The Darkness on their Permission to Land tour in 2004.

With the news of the new tour, The Darkness also teased the lead single from the record, the 1970s-inspired The Longest Kiss which nods towards Queen and Sir Paul McCartney.

The band consists of Justin Hawkins, Rufus Tiger Taylor, Frankie Poullain and Dan Hawkins (Picture: Mike Marsland/Getty Images for Sky Arts Awards 2024)

Rockstars Ash will be accompanying The Darkness on tour (Picture: Chris Lever/REX/Shutterstock)

The British rock band, which formed in 2000, consists of Justin Hawkins on lead vocals, his brother Dan Hawkins, Frankie Poullain, and Rufus Tiger Taylor.

Their debut album, Permission to Land, sold over 1.3million copies in the UK and the band won three Brit awards the following year.

They announced their reunion shows in 2011, with their seventh studio album released in 2021.

With the news of their latest tour, frontman Justin said: ‘You know the thing when God’s breath tickles your soul and tells you to create? Yeah, makes me giggle too. But you can’t resist.

‘God might not be the power she once was, but say what you like about her, she knows damn well that what the world needs now, is rock sweet rock. And who are we, mere mortals of extraordinary ability, to argue with the divine?

The Darkness formed in 2000 and won three Brit awards in 2004 (Picture: PA)

‘So we knuckled down and thought really hard about the best of the best, the elite songs, the life-changing music of the ages. Then we popped out a dozen bangers before lunch.

‘And these bangers we present to you here, wallowing in an aromatic aural ragu, served atop the charred remains of our envious contemporaries.’

Lead singer of Ash, Tim Wheeler, added: ‘In 2004 we toured the UK’s arenas with The Darkness as Permission to Land catapulted them into the big league.

‘Next March, 21 years later, we will reunite to tear across Britain before an epic crescendo at Wembley Arena. We believe in a thing called Rock!’

Speaking of The Longest Kiss, Justin went on: ‘Misty Orchards! That’s not my porn name, that’s the kind of scenery that I love.

Justin Hawkins has teased the band’s new music (Picture: Diogo Baptista/SOPA Images/Shutt)

‘I awakened to such a vista in the delightful Scottish highland town of Nairn on the morning that inspiration for The Longest Kiss lyric struck.

‘I was bleary-eyed and locked in an unending embrace with my (mid) life partner.

‘Weird that I can still sing, but that’s a testament to the resilience of humans, especially lead singers.

‘The music itself is a piano-led composition, the chorus of which my brother and I came up with after he’d taken a long time to empty this bladder during some impressive pub endurance.

‘The verses were transported from a song I’ve been working on for decades as part of a musical about the collapse of the Lowestoft fishing industry, called The Collapse of The Lowestoft Fishing Industry.

‘The musical isn’t finished yet. But The Longest Kiss is. The results are astounding. We’re all very proud of this.’

Tickets for The Darkness’ 2025 tour go on sale on Friday, September 27.

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