Hope Of The States' Sam Herlihy launches solo single via text-adventure game

Sam Herlihy of Hope Of The States has released a new solo single, "Insignificance," through an accompanying text-based adventure game that provides context and narrative for the song's lyrics. A standard digital release is expected at a later date.

The track opens with nods to early Bob Dylan before building into a chorus filled with fuzz-heavy guitars. Herlihy said the song's opening line nods to a Jim O'Rourke record of the same name, one he described as "so trad but out-there" at once, and that much of his upcoming album is about the artists whose music has mattered most to him. "Dylan, [Spiritualized's] Jason Pierce, Kurt Cobain are iconoclasts," he said. "In the absence of any meaningful religion... I think it's important to celebrate people who can break your heart like that."

"Insignificance" follows Herlihy's first solo single, "The Entire Span of Human Existence," released last year alongside the announcement that he would step out from Hope Of The States for a solo career. His debut solo album, Poltergeist, will arrive in October, self-produced and recorded on the same cassette he used to record his very first songs at age 13. It will be released via Spectral Operator and on white vinyl through Rough Trade shops, with a Rough Trade-exclusive blue vinyl edition and a bonus CD featuring live tracks from a 2025 show at St Pancras Old Church.

Herlihy's solo work runs alongside a busy stretch for Hope Of The States, who reunited in 2024 after nearly 20 years apart, released new material including "Long Waits In A & E," and reissued their 2004 debut The Lost Riots for National Album Day 2025. "The new stuff we're making is really good," Herlihy said of the band's return. "There's a real sense of gratitude to be able to do this again."

Poltergeist joins the release calendar as one of the fall's more unusual indie rollouts, pairing a solo debut with an interactive game built to carry its own lyrics.