London band World News will release the debut album In Purgatory

World News have confirmed their debut album In Purgatory for October 16, Clash reported. The London band release it through Pie & Mash, and Stereogum described the wait as a long one for a group it has been writing about for years.

The announcement came with "The Way It Goes," which arrived with a video. Clash called it 80s-tinged indie pop built on hooks, while Stereogum heard a clean-guitar track somewhere between Mark Knopfler and Johnny Marr.

Vocalist Alex Evans said in a note that the song was mostly written and demoed back in 2020, and that its words were less a story than "phrases, thoughts and collections of words of how I was feeling at the time."

Evans said several songs on the album date from that period, while others were written much closer to the sessions, in some cases weeks or days before the band went into the studio. He named "Sidestep" as one of the late arrivals.

The tracklist runs Frog, Don't Want To Know, Everything's Coming Up Roses, Vinegar Swimming Pool, I Don't Hate You, Classical Music, Sidestep, The Way It Goes, Purgatory, Wet, Dry, I Can't Fly and Look Inside My Mind.

Three of those are already out. Stereogum noted that "Sidestep" appeared in April, and that "Everything Is Coming Up Roses" and "Don't Want To Know" came out last year. Clash reported that the band have built their following by playing show after show rather than through a single push, and the album announcement followed that stretch of live work.

In Purgatory sits with Vancouver group PISS and their debut LP among the season's indie debuts on the release calendar. A UK headline tour follows the record, reaching London's Scala on November 3.