British underground icons The Bevis Frond have unveiled details of their new album, Horrorful Heights, set for release on April 3rd (via Fire Records). The announcement heralds a new chapter for songwriter, guitarist, and frontman Nick Saloman, showcasing the band’s enduring blend of melodic psychedelia and wiry guitar epics.
Accompanying the news is the release of the title track, ‘Horrorful Heights’, available to listen to now. Stand-up comedian and long-time fan, Stewart Lee, writes in the album’s accompanying notes:
The new single and title track was written by Nick one afternoon whilst watching football on TV with guitar in hand. Nick, his sitar and his multi-layered vocals exhale a cloud of the head shoppotpourri pothead pastiche he’s essayed before, but in its most perfect form. Tablas tap as the ghost of George Harrison knocks over a jar of incense sticks on the counter. Nick maintains he invented the word ‘Horrorful’, “but it just sounded better than ‘Horrible’ or ‘Terrible’, so I thought; ‘what the hell, I’m a pretty literate guy, I can invent words if I want to’. My aim is to see ‘HORRORFUL’ appear as a conundrum on ‘Countdown’!
The album is set to offer one of the most approachable entry points to the band’s world in years, gathering their core strengths into a cohesive and vivid set. For the devoted, a deluxe edition of the album will also be available exclusively through Rough Trade and Fire Records, which includes a companion collection of outtakes titled Horrorful Offal.
Lee notes:
In essence, Horrorful Heights, has a more defined identity than most of The Bevis Frond’s eclectic albums, but Nick, predictably, shrugs off any ideas of intent and consequence; “As usual, it’s a collection of what I thought were my best songs of the last couple of years. I just sit down and write stuff when the muse hits (which is pretty frequently), but somehow this time I felt there was a slightly different feel to the songs. Nothing very different, you understand, but perhaps just a bit more commercial. It wasn’t intentional, it never is, I just write and what comes out is what you get.”
If you want to muddy the waters, the accompanying out-takes collection Horrorful Offal offers you the opportunity to complicate its parent album’s apparent coherence. For now, The Bevis Frond remain the last master craftsmen still standing in the dismal 3D-printed funfair of post-truth 2025, where AI bands can chart and algorithms drive all sound towards a soulless centre-ground. More than ever, The Bevis Frond are the sonic trepanning your brain didn’t know it needed. It’s been an honour and a privilege to travel with them as a fan for the best part of four decades.
2026 TOUR
04 Jun: Just Dropped In Records, Coventry, UK
05 Jun: YES Pink Room, Manchester, UK
06 Jun: Room 2, Glasgow, UK
07 Jun: Sneaky Pete’s, Edinburgh, UK
08 Jun: Central Bar, Gateshead, UK
09 Jun: The Attic Bar, Leeds, UK
10 Jun: Portland Arms, Cambridge, UK
11 Jun: The Fickle Pickle, Southend On Sea, UK
12 Jun: Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, UK
13 June: The Piper, St Leonard’s On Sea, UK
Horrorful Heights Tracklist
Disc 1
A1 A Mess of Stress
A2 Best Laid Plans
A3 Square House
A4 Quietly
A5 Space Age Eyes
B1 Naked Air
B2 Horrorful Heights
B3 A Simple Pursuit
B5 Hiss
Disc 2
C1 Animal Man
C2 Romany Blue
C3 Mossbacks’ Dream
C4 Buffaloed
C5 Silver Insects
D1 That’s Your Lot
D2 Sink Estate
D3 I’m Gonna Drag You Into My World
D4 Momma Bear
D5 King For A Day
Pre-Order Horrorful Heights: https://thebevisfrond.lnk.to/HorrorfulHeights