[Photo courtesy of Hugo Comte]

By Grant Kelly, Contributor

Indie rock band The Murder Capital released their third studio album Blindness on Friday, February 21. Re-energized after years of extensive touring, the band recorded the album over the course of three weeks in Los Angeles with Grammy-winning producer John Congleton, who had also worked on the band’s previous album Gigi’s Recovery. In a press release, the band describe the recording process as “intense and fast-paced,” and that they “prioritized urgency, energy and freshness” while in the studio. 

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Earlier this week, on February 17, the band released the single “A Distant Life” in the leadup to the album’s release. Regarding the song, frontman James McGovern shared that “I wrote the lyrics for this one in transit to one of the many inspiring service stops on tour in the UK. I’d been listening to a podcast called Poetry Unbound about Margaret Atwood’s poem ‘All Bread’ and felt the urge to write. I knew I wanted the music to be naive and unaffected, much like true love itself, so myself and Irv stood outside the back of the venue in Liverpool that evening. I asked him to play two chords back and forth. It all came together in a flash with some added flair from Irv, and in that moment the distance between my girlfriend and I shrunk slightly, if just for a moment.”

Following the release of this album, The Murder Capital have announced a tour across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, beginning in Wellington, NZ on March 31, 2025. The tour is also set to debut their “biggest Irish headline show so far” at Iveagh Gardens in Dublin. 

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