Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats have announced their seventh full-length album, Shapes Of Midnight, and unveiled its title track. The album, arriving later in 2026 on the band’s own Killer Candy Records, follows 2024’s Nell’ Ora Blu, the band’s synth-heavy soundtrack for an imaginary Giallo film. Shapes Of Midnight returns Uncle Acid to a guitar-forward sound while introducing new layers of melancholic pop, NWOBHM gallop, jazz-inflected arrangements and Krautrock-influenced synthesizer textures.
A concept album partly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque Of The Red Death,” Shapes Of Midnight weaves the anxieties of the modern world into a framework of eerie harmonies, twin-guitar interplay and the dense, downbeat heaviness that has defined the band’s catalog since the breakthrough of 2011’s Blood Lust. Founder and chief songwriter Kevin Starrs offered this about the band’s worldbuilding approach: “Our albums exist in an alternate universe to our own. They’re all stories that could happen here, but everything’s just a bit ‘off.’”
Shapes Of Midnight was recorded live to analog tape at Abbey Road Studios over three days with engineer Chris Bolster, whose previous credits include work with Phil Spector, Ozzy Osbourne and Paul McCartney. The sessions employed era-appropriate microphones — including vintage Neumann models previously used by The Beatles and Pink Floyd — as well as period-correct consoles and compression equipment. Mastering was handled by Grammy-nominated engineer Noel Summerville, whose catalogue spans The White Stripes, The Clash and My Bloody Valentine.
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Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats were formed in Cambridge in 2009 by Starrs as a solo project before evolving into a full band. Their catalog of psychedelic doom-influenced hard rock attracted wide critical attention with Blood Lust (2011) and its follow-up Mind Control (2013), both released through Rise Above Records. The band further cemented their cult status with The Night Creeper (2015) and Wasteland, before venturing into more atmospheric and experimental territory with Nell’ Ora Blu. A 2013 tour as sole support to Black Sabbath announced Uncle Acid to a wider heavy music audience. The current lineup is Starrs (vocals, lead guitar), George Hudson (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Jus Smith (bass), Jon Rice (drums) and Rachel Burnett (keys, vocals).
