SPACE PISTOL ANNOUNCE SECOND ALBUM HEADLOCKER

New 11-track album arrives 4 September 2026, followed by a UK tour.

Milton Keynes alt-rock band Space Pistol have announced their second full-length album, Headlocker, set for release on 4 September 2026.

The band have also confirmed an accompanying tour running throughout September and October. The campaign begins on release day with a free-entry album launch show at The Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes on 4 September.

Following their 2024 debut album, Leave With Everything, Headlocker represents a significant expansion of what Space Pistol can be. Across 11 tracks, the band push further in every direction: heavier, softer, denser, more dynamic and more technically ambitious than anything they have previously released.

It is also the first Space Pistol album recorded with their new drummer, Tom Darby, capturing the band’s current line-up at full force.

“Headlocker is a clear level up for us,” the band explain. “The songs are more challenging to play, more intense to listen to and much broader in terms of style. We’ve gone heavier than we ever have before, but we’ve also gone softer and more vulnerable than we ever have before. It pushes the walls of what people might expect Space Pistol to sound like.”

FROM LEAVE WITH EVERYTHING TO HEADLOCKER

The album’s title continues a conversation that began on Leave With Everything.

Where the first album explored self-preservation, the power of stepping away, and the need to protect what matters when certain environments or patterns threaten to pull you backwards, Headlocker turns inward and explores what remains after that decision has been made.

“Leave With Everything was about learning to use the power of ‘no’,” says the band. “It was about recognising when a situation, pattern or instinct was taking more from you than it gave back, and giving yourself permission to leave before you lost sight of what mattered.

“Headlocker is what happens afterwards. You’ve removed the obvious distractions and escape routes, but that leaves you alone with everything going on inside your own head. What was once muted is suddenly turned up to full volume, and you have to sit with it, confront it and find a way through it yourself. That feeling of being trapped within your own mind is the Headlocker.”

NO SLOW INTRODUCTION

While Leave With Everything gradually introduced itself through its opening track, “Happiness Anonymous”, Headlocker begins with the explosive first single “Space Pirate”. “We didn’t want any messing about this time,” says the band. “We wanted to kick the door down with full energy from the start.”

The opening run of singles “Space Pirate” and “Devil and the Deep Sea” the band immediately establishes the impact of the record; from there, it broadens into new territory. Across the album, Space Pistol move between their heaviest and most complex material to date and a softer, more vulnerable side of the band that has previously only been hinted at.

Recent singles “Devil and the Deep Sea” and “I Can’t Sleep” have already offered glimpses of that expanded sound, but the band say the full record pushes considerably further.

“There are things on this album that people will immediately recognise as Space Pistol, but there are also places we’ve never gone before. We wanted it to feel unpredictable without ever feeling like a collection of disconnected songs.”

Headlocker was produced by Dave Draper at The Old Cider Press, continuing the relationship established on Leave With Everything.

“Dave knows us and has become part of our DNA,” says the band. “These were complicated songs to capture, but he understood exactly what they needed. It’s the most ambitious and complete thing we have ever made.”

HEADLOCKER TRACKLIST

Space Pirate

Devil and the Deep Sea

New

Turbo Blood

Surreal

I Can’t Sleep

Fantasmagorical

Headlocker

Isolationist

Ambulance

Tomb

HEADLOCKER TOUR 2026

The Headlocker tour begins on 4 September with a free-entry album release party at Space Pistol’s hometown venue, The Craufurd Arms in Milton Keynes at the Bar Stage. More than simply a tour date, the show will be a full celebration of the album’s release and the start of the next chapter for the band. The show will have special guests and friends of the band, Sunday Best supporting.

Space Pistol will be joined on several dates by Arid Wave, a band they were introduced to through a mutual friend and immediately became fans of.

“We instantly fell in love with their music,” says the band. “We’re genuinely so excited to have them joining us and really wanted to bring them onto some of these shows.”

The tour will then come full circle, finishing back at The Craufurd Arms as Space Pistol support Evil Scarecrow. Beginning and ending the run at their hometown venue gives the Headlocker tour a fitting sense of closure.