"It's more guitar focused this time"

On their first number one album, Nothing But Thieves mix guitars with synths and prog-rock influences with danceable beats. It’s a sound they call “retro-futuristic”…

- Jenna Scaramanga

Not many bands hit their fourth album still on an upward trajectory, but Nothing But Thieves are still climbing. After headlining London's O2 Arena for the first time on the back of 2021's Moral Panic, they've entered the UK album chart at #1 for the first time with latest effort Dead Club City. It's an album that finds the band incorporating more synths as they flirt with dance and hip-hop grooves, but it's also a concept album that takes cues from Rush and ELO. Guitarist Joe Langridge-Brown calls it "retro-futuristic", and it proves the band can get more creatively ambitious and expand their audience at the same time.

In an era of squeezed budgets it's increasingly rare for a band to have the luxury of time to make an album, but by recording closer to home with guitarist/keyboardist Dominic Craik co-producing, Nothing But Thieves gave themselves room to experiment. "Previously we've worked with Mike Crossy in LA," explains Dom. "We would pitch up there for like six, seven weeks, and your deadline was your deadline."

Joe agrees. "We'd got stuck in a pattern where if something didn't go our way in the studio and we wanted to re-record, that was just tough. This allowed us to experiment. We recorded one song, City Haunts, I think five times, chasing something we felt we'd lost. In previous projects, maybe that would have been lost forever."

Giving themselves room to create a concept album risked sounding self-indulgent, an accusation they've dodged by keeping the average song length under four minutes. Said Joe: "That was a conversation this year: 'How far can we push the prog, without sounding like it's a cliché of a prog album?"" Lead track Welcome To The DCC is enhanced by a Taurus synth bass inspired by Rush's Geddy Lee. "It does this kind of crazy monophonic rumble thing that you can't get from anything else," grins Dom.