Jungle prepare new album "Sunshine"

Jungle detailed their fifth album, Sunshine, out August 14 via AWAL, the band's first record made with vocalist Lydia Kitto as a full member rather than a guest. Founders Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland, friends since age nine who started the band 13 years ago, told DIY Magazine that welcoming Kitto into the group full time reshaped how they wrote, moving away from the two-person dynamic that had defined Jungle since its start. Kitto's move to full membership was announced separately in August, ahead of the album itself.

Sunshine follows 2023's Volcano, whose single "Back on 74" became an unexpected viral hit, propelled by a powerful performance at the 2024 BRIT Awards and a run of streaming numbers the band has said still surprises them. Rather than chase that same viral formula, Sunshine pulls from the Brazilian pop of the 1960s and 70s on lead single "The Wave," and from the classic soul influence of Loaded Honey, a side project Kitto and Lloyd-Watson released last year. Lloyd-Watson described the album as a return to the groovier, more beautiful side of Volcano rather than its more aggressive tracks.

The band took most of 2025 off after the exhausting stretch that followed "Back on 74," a break Lloyd-Watson and McFarland described as necessary after touring arenas almost exclusively by the time the Volcano cycle wound down. Kitto said the band deliberately avoided writing for viral success this time around, arguing that chasing short-term popularity works against the kind of career Jungle wants.

Lloyd-Watson made the same point from a different angle, saying that trying to impress everyone tends to impress no one, and pointed to Tame Impala as an example of how far a band's sound can drift before it risks losing the fans who found it in the first place. "We're never going to make a gabber record, put it that way," he said.

The band has booked its first ever full UK arena tour for November, with stops including London's O2 Arena, Leeds's First Direct Bank Arena and Lisbon's MEO Arena. Lloyd-Watson said the shows will lean on musicianship over spectacle given the rising cost of arena-scale production, an approach Kitto summed up by recalling her father's reaction to a Jungle show: "You don't come away singing the lighting."

Sunshine has since arrived, and MusicSuey's coverage of the album's actual release picks up where this announcement leaves off. The record and tour both join the week's new pop and indie coverage on the release calendar and the tour guide.