we are unpeople Album Review

29 September 2026 Andrew Ellis

we are unpeople Album Review: unpeople Debut Is a Solid 10/10

we are unpeople is out 9 October on SharpTone Records. It is a 10/10.

They first hit my radar years ago ripping through a tent at Download. Not a polite first look — a full tear-up. Every single after that got worn out waiting for a proper album. It felt like a lifetime. Then we are unpeople turned up and did not blink.

That is the whole review, really. The wait was worth it.

They threw the wheel out

Every rock fan is hunting the next name that rewrites the book. Think AC/DC. Green Day. Nirvana. Most new bands don’t reinvent the wheel — they just rework it and send it back in a new package.

unpeople bin the wheel and start again. One minute it is properly heavy. The next it is a chorus that will not leave your head, stacked with those four-part harmonies they have been building the live show on. Jake Crawford, Luke Caley, Em Lodge and Richard Rayner do not pick a lane so a playlist can file them. They jump.

That is why the same band can be the lightest thing at Bloodstock and the heaviest thing at Kendal Calling. we are unpeople is that argument on record.

Pre save here

we are unpeople is a once in a generation album. 10/10

The songs

“clouds”, “friends”, “the garden”, “waste” — those singles were the breadcrumb trail. “blueprints” is the latest, Luke walking in with a chorus Crawford barely touched, aimed at the people you keep holding up who only ever hold up themselves. Lighter. Still no prisoners.

Then the rest of the twelve:

clouds / friends / the garden / swallow / bottle it / blueprints / haunted / waste / look up / kangareuben / smother / as you were

“kangareuben” is the grin in the middle. “as you were” shuts the door. Nothing on here feels like filler put there to make up a debut.

And while you have been waiting, they have not been sitting still. Download main stage. Metallica. Reading & Leeds. Radio 1 in the daytime. Royal Blood and Don Broco next. A January headline tour that is already all but gone, Electric Ballroom included. So we are unpeople is not them arriving. It is them finally putting the full set in your hands.

Get the album. Do not miss them live.

This is a band to watch. Not in the vague “ones to watch” way. In the get-the-record-on-day-one way. And when they come through in January, do not miss them. The tent was the warning. The album is the proof. The room will be the point.

Rock News final word: we are unpeople is the debut that earns the obsession. Heavy, huge, and written like they have already had enough of being compared to the last lot. 10/10. Play it. Then get in the room.