The Blue Aeroplanes Announce New Album Tales From The Silver Lounge and Share Title Track
The Bristol art-rock veterans return with their 14th studio album on 27 November, alongside new single ‘Silver Lounge’ and a series of UK live dates.
Beloved Bristol art-rockers The Blue Aeroplanes have announced their new album, Tales From The Silver Lounge, set for release on 27 November via ArtStar Records. Alongside the announcement, the band have shared the album’s lead single and title track, ‘Silver Lounge’, offering a first taste of their latest collection of guitar-driven, poetry-infused songs.
The announcement follows the release of two best-of compilations through Chrysalis Records in 2025: Magical Realism: The Best Of The Blue Aeroplanes and Outsider Art: The Other Best Of The Blue Aeroplanes. Now, the band are firmly focused on the present, returning with a 14th album that showcases their unmistakable songwriting and enduring creative spirit.
Led by frontman and poet Gerard Langley, The Blue Aeroplanes have spent four decades developing their distinctive blend of art-rock, restless guitars and unconventional sprechgesang. On Tales From The Silver Lounge, they venture into another richly imagined world, bringing together surreal storytelling, vivid characters and the band's trademark musical energy.
The album's lyrical landscape is typically eclectic, exploring everything from name-doppelgangers and falconry terminology to Greek mythology, postcards, abandoned Teslas and clocks running backwards. Elsewhere, the songs conjure encounters in God's waiting room, suburban party envy, First World War ghosts anticipating future conflicts and a factory filled with dismembered dolls.
The Story Behind ‘Silver Lounge’
The album's lead single takes its name from a painting by Scottish artist John Byrne, which also features as the record's cover artwork. During extended hospital stays in recent years, Langley spent time reading exhibition catalogues, eventually discovering Byrne's depiction of a long-closed establishment on Paisley High Street. The painting now hangs in Langley's living room, having become a central inspiration for the album's imagined world.
Combining the painting's fictional customers with fragments of personal experience, the band's history and other unexpected influences, Langley has built much of the record around the atmosphere and mythology of The Silver Lounge.
Discussing the new single, Gerard Langley says: “Silver Lounge is a punk romp through slightly nightmarish recollections, based on conversations overheard in The Silver Lounge, a disreputable dockside bar on a British 1950’s-themed planet. The bar, whose clientele range across galaxies and times, has a bad reputation, and their conversations are highly unreliable. But they like a singalong in the early hours, so we’ve given it a rousing chorus.”
He continues: “It’s a thrilling evocation of a half-remembered (don’t drink the cocktails) night at the legendary Silver Lounge, all wrapped up in a vivacious 1950’s poetry meets Adam & The Ants two minutes and twenty seconds. And you don’t even have to book an interplanetary flight to get there!”
A New Chapter for The Blue Aeroplanes
Recorded at Humm Studios in Bristol across two intensive sessions, Tales From The Silver Lounge brings together a line-up that has remained largely unchanged for 14 years. The band's long-established musical chemistry is central to the record, with its collaborative arrangements supporting Langley's distinctive lyrical approach.
The album features cover artwork by John Byrne, reproduced with permission from the John Byrne Estate, and closes with ‘Apostrophe Catastrophe Apostrophe’, a track that Langley highlights as a particular example of the band's close musical connection.
Reflecting on the recording process and the finished album, Langley says: “All the recording was done at Bristol’s Humm Studios in two intense sessions, and it’s got a seriously cool John Byrne painting on the sleeve, by kind permission of the John Byrne Estate.
“It’s been made by a line-up that has lasted pretty much unchanged for fourteen years. The almost telepathic closeness of the band members is obvious all over the album, especially in the closing ‘Apostrophe Catastrophe Apostrophe’. Long-time fans take note, this is as good as anything we’ve done. New fans of ‘speak/singing’ bands, start here.”
With Tales From The Silver Lounge, The Blue Aeroplanes continue to push forward while remaining true to the adventurous spirit that has defined their music for four decades.
The album is available to pre-order now.
Pre-order Tales From The Silver Lounge HERE.
The Blue Aeroplanes UK Live Dates
The band will celebrate the release with a handful of live performances in November and December.
- Tuesday 24 November – Rough Trade East, London ([Tickets])
- Sunday 29 November – Rough Trade, Bristol ([Tickets])
- Friday 4 December – The Fleece, Bristol (SOLD OUT)
The Blue Aeroplanes Line-up
- Gerard Langley – Lead vocals, tambourine
- Mike Youé – Electric and acoustic guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
- Bec Jevons – Electric guitar, bells, lead vocals, backing vocals
- Rita Lynch – Electric and acoustic guitar, lead vocals, backing vocals
- Ed Taylor – Electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, keyboards, backing vocals
- Chris Sharp – Bass, backing vocals
- John Langley – Drums, percussion
- Wojtek Dmochowski – Dance
Tales From The Silver Lounge is released on 27 November via ArtStar Records.
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Credit image Bee Monelle