Death From Above 1979 Announce Private Lives Album and 2027 Tour

Private Lives album news brings Death From Above 1979 back with a fierce new single, a 10-song record, and an extensive North American tour.

A loud, long-awaited return

Some bands ease back into the room. Death From Above 1979 kick the door off its hinges.

The Canadian rock duo—Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler—have announced Private Lives, their first studio album in six years, alongside a new title track and a packed North American tour. The record is scheduled to arrive January 29 through their original label, Last Gang/MNRK.

For fans who’ve missed that wonderfully unruly combination of grinding bass, pounding drums, and punk-dance electricity, this is a particularly welcome bit of news. Death From Above 1979 have never sounded interested in taking the scenic route, and Private Lives appears ready to continue that tradition.

How the old songs sparked something new

The new album follows 2021’s Is 4 Lovers, making Private Lives the duo’s first full-length release since that record. Its creation was shaped by a run of retrospective performances, including shows celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, as well as performances marking a decade of The Physical World.

There’s a familiar fan experience in that kind of anniversary tour: you go out to revisit the songs that made you fall in love with a band, then return home craving something you’ve never heard before. That seems to be precisely what happened here.

“Playing the old songs every day really inspires you to want to make something new,” Keeler said.

Grainger described the effect of those shows as more complicated.

“After the anniversary shows, we were at once kinda sick of celebrating ourselves but also re-grounded in the true foundational sound of the band,” he explained.

That tension—between nostalgia and renewal—runs through the album’s story. Rather than beginning entirely from scratch, the duo revisited unused demos that had remained privately treasured over the years. Those older ideas were unearthed, reshaped, and given a second life.

The magic of sweet, sour, heavy, and playful

That process seems to have brought the band back to one of its most instinctive creative spaces: making music because it feels physical, immediate, and fun.

“When we first started making music, it was as easy as going down to the basement,” Grainger said. “It was a physical process. An extension of just hanging out and living together. As the years went by, the process became more deliberate.”

The answer, he suggested, was not to reject that maturity but to reconnect with the spirit that made the earliest recordings exciting in the first place.

“The trick is to remember what makes it fun and special. Our band has always been a balance of sweet and sour. Heavy music that’s also tender and playful. We’re really cooking when we lean into those contradictions.”

— Sebastien Grainger

That description feels like a tidy mission statement for Death From Above 1979. Their music has always had muscle, but it’s rarely been humorless. There’s room for menace, mischief, tenderness, and a little chaos—all in the same song, sometimes within the same minute.

‘Private Lives’ takes aim at overexposure

The first preview of the album is its title track, “Private Lives,” a song built around the uneasy idea of trying to preserve privacy in an age when everyone is encouraged to share everything.

The duo’s explanation is pointed without losing its sense of absurdity. They argue that people are often pushed—or push one another—to reveal their most intimate moments and quietest thoughts. The destination, they suggest, is frequently little more than a “cheap consumer feedback loop.”

That’s a sharp theme for a song in an era of constant posting, instant reactions, and personal lives turned into public content. But don’t mistake the concept for a solemn lecture. The band insists that the track is also, quite simply, “a ripping rock song with maniacal riffs.”

And that may be the ideal Death From Above 1979 approach: raise a serious question, then set it on fire with distortion.

The 10-song album is described as a renewed commitment to “the pure industrial magic of electricity.” The group also emphasizes that they’ve never been a halfway band. Their creative philosophy is all-in, no safety net, full voltage.

The accompanying music video stars actor Kim Bodnia and is directed by Eva Michon. The duo compared their energy to Bodnia’s dance performance in the video, calling it an “all or nothing” moment. It’s a suitably theatrical image for a song that appears to balance social commentary with pure riff-driven release.

The complete Private Lives tracklist

The album will contain 10 songs, including a collaboration with CSS. The titles suggest a record that won’t be shy about sharp contrasts, strange detours, or the occasional raised eyebrow.

1. “Private Lives”
2. “Escape From Steeltown”
3. “Mystery” featuring CSS
4. “Hi Lo”
5. “Put Up/Shut Up”
6. “Dreams”
7. “Drunk In Tokyo”
8. “Like My Ex Did”
9. “TV Don’t Talk Back”
10. “Late Stage Liberal”

The tracklist alone hints at the band’s familiar habit of placing bruising rock songs beside titles that feel playful, cryptic, or slyly conversational. That blend has always been part of the appeal. Death From Above 1979 can sound like they’re ready to tear through a concrete wall, then suddenly leave you wondering what, exactly, happened in Tokyo.

A North American tour stretches into spring

The album announcement arrives with an extensive North American tour. The run begins February 2 in Tempe, Arizona, before moving through the United States and Canada during February and March.

The schedule includes major stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, and plenty of smaller-market appearances along the way. It’s the kind of routing that gives longtime fans several chances to catch the duo in compact venues, where the low end hits your ribs and standing still becomes a questionable life choice.

Death From Above 1979’s 2027 tour dates

February

• 02 — Tempe, AZ — The Marquee
• 04 — San Diego, CA — Observatory San Diego
• 05 — Los Angeles, CA — The Belasco
• 06 — Santa Ana, CA — Observatory Orange County
• 09 — Ventura, CA — Ventura Music Hall
• 10 — Sacramento, CA — Ace of Spades
• 11 — San Francisco, CA — August Hall
• 24 — Waterloo, ON — Maxwell’s
• 25 — Toronto, ON — HISTORY
• 26 — London, ON — London Music Hall
• 27 — Ottawa, ON — The Bronson

March

• 01 — Montreal, QC — Theatre Beanfield
• 02 — Quebec City, QC — Imperial Bell
• 03 — Boston, MA — Brighton Music Hall
• 05 — Brooklyn, NY — Warsaw
• 06 — Philadelphia, PA — The Foundry
• 07 — Washington, DC — Howard Theatre
• 08 — Pittsburgh, PA — Thunderbird Music Hall
• 15 — Denver, CO — Gothic Theatre
• 17 — Chicago, IL — Thalia Hall
• 18 — St. Louis, MO — Old Rock House
• 19 — Minneapolis, MN — Fine Line
• 20 — Winnipeg, MB — Park Theatre
• 22 — Red Deer, AB — Bo’s Bar & Stage
• 23 — Edmonton, AB — Midway
• 24 — Calgary, AB — Palace Theatre
• 26 — Vancouver, BC — Vogue Theatre
• 27 — Victoria, BC — Capital Ballroom
• 29 — Portland, OR — Revolution Hall
• 31 — Seattle, WA — The Crocodile

Tickets are available through official ticketing channels, with availability depending on the individual venue and date.

Looking back at Is 4 Lovers

Before Private Lives, the duo released Is 4 Lovers in 2021. That album was praised as their strongest work since their debut, while also showing the band wrestling with love, modern society, and the strange bruises left by both.

The record was described as a colorful evolution of their dance-punk sound: still forceful, still capable of packing a punch, but more vivid in its emotional palette. That balance connects naturally to what Grainger has said about returning to the band’s earliest instincts.

Around the release of Is 4 Lovers, he explained that the album represented a movement inward rather than outward. Instead of focusing as much on the wider world, he looked toward the smaller circle of family, friends, and familiar nights in Toronto.

He connected that approach to the duo’s earliest work, including the 2002 EP Heads Up and You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine. Those songs, he said, were rooted in his immediate surroundings and in the simple goal of writing something meaningful to him first.

“My approach to writing then was to write something that means something to me, and if it means something to me hopefully it’ll mean something to other people. I’ve gone back to that.”

— Sebastien Grainger

That idea may explain why Private Lives began with old demos rather than a blank page. Sometimes the future is hiding in a basement recording, waiting for the right moment—and the right amount of volume—to come back alive.

FAQ

• What is the new Death From Above 1979 album called?
  The new album is titled Private Lives. It is the duo’s first studio album in six years and contains 10 songs.
• When will Private Lives be released?
  The album is scheduled for release on January 29 through Last Gang/MNRK.
• What is the first single from Private Lives?
  The first single is the album’s title track, “Private Lives,” which features heavy riffs and explores the desire for privacy in an age of overexposure.
• Who appears in the “Private Lives” music video?
  Actor Kim Bodnia stars in the video, which was directed by Eva Michon.
• Where will Death From Above 1979 tour in 2027?
  The North American tour includes cities such as Tempe, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Vancouver, Portland, and Seattle, among others.

Bring that charged, basement-born spirit home with a favorite album cover poster from Architeg Prints. It’s a warm, stylish way to keep a little rock ’n’ roll electricity on your wall.