London’s indie-punk band adults release their second full-length today via Fika Recordings, pulling together two years of slow changes, private anxieties and the background hum of a city busy pushing out its residents. They describe “the seeds we sow are sprouting buds nonetheless” as “a pocketful of seeds, ideas, loves, fears and hopes which have sprouted, grown, and intertwined over the past two years.” The record gathers “echoes of the songs and bands we love into deeply personal songs about growth, change, loss and love, set to the background hum of a world which wants to crush all hope.”
Compared to their debut “for everything, always”, this one took time. Three months recording on rooftops and inside South London warehouses with longtime collaborator Rich Mandell left room for refinement, repetition and accidental discoveries. They mention this is the longest they’ve ever spent on a record — the first album was done in a garage in a day — and while there’s intention in these tracks, the band were also just messing with loud amps and gear outside bedroom limitations.
That push-and-pull between melodic instinct and punk urgency isn’t planned. They explain it loosely: “Tom listens to a lot of fast, noisy music, Joely listens to more melodic music and we bully Joe to play the drums as fast as possible.” Spending more time writing together made space for harmonies and shared ideas, though they admit some of those melodies probably evaporated during the long tracking period. The album’s tone ends up conversational: dual voices occasionally contradicting each other, guitars looping into anxious circles, drums pushing the tempo like someone pacing.
Themes of growth and change run quietly underneath. They’ve been writing about this since they started in their late twenties. “I guess it’s that cliche of writing about what u know,” they say. Family, alcohol, death, relationships — these topics land heavy on paper, but the band emphasizes the cathartic angle. Most lyrics are meant as ways to expel things rather than sit inside them. The record is messy because life is messy, and these songs talk through that without romanticizing it.
“flag”, which appears on the album, captures the tension of being priced out of London. The band recall writing it near Elephant and Castle, watching waves of “regeneration” reshape an area by pushing residents out, demolishing estates the council previously neglected, replacing them with unaffordable flats, and displacing market traders. They settled on a version with two clashing vocal perspectives, beating against each other like arguments overheard in a kitchen. They note that “it’s hard to not look at anywhere in london and see people being priced out or kicked out of their homes.”
adults grew out of the South London DIY community, specifically the DIY Space for London. They talk about that era as both draining and beautiful: a bar to loiter behind, shifts to clean up after, awkward soundchecks, and a hundred friendships formed in the concrete dust. They admit there were fall-outs, but the amount of bands, collectives and campaigns that bloomed from its closure shows how necessary it was. When Ben from Another Subculture posted about its tenth anniversary, hundreds of people surfaced memories, and adults suddenly remembered how many shows and experiments had lived there.
The scene now feels busy but fragmented into smaller pockets. Another Subculture still runs monthly listings, and bassist Carl keeps a DIY gig listings platform, radio show, and puts on events. On the heavier end, Traidora seem to be everywhere, Rubber remain noisy DIY Space legends, while Ikhras and Tethered are consistently fun live. On the lighter side, Lanny from Joanna Gruesome dropped a new tape, Grazia keep hosting reliable lineups, Es are approaching their last gig in December, Cheerbleederz are steady, and Gob Nation seem impossible to avoid at least once a week. Promoters like Cryptic Growth and Divine Schism keep international and local punk wired into small rooms, and Dulwich Hamlet have started hosting shows at their clubhouse again.
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At core, adults are four friends — Carl, Joe, Joely and Tom — writing noisy awkward pop songs with crunchy guitars, fast drums and yelping dual vocals. Their path includes the single “MSN” on Art Is Hard, an EP with Caballito Records in Madrid, splits with Bitch Hunt (“Space Armadillo EP”) and Oxford’s Spank Hair (“…in the big league”), and their debut album with Fika in 2022. They joke they’re still chasing one song as good as Martha.
Shows around the UK with Felicette run through the end of October, including London’s New River Studios Divine Schism Oh Community! alldayer on the 18th, Bristol and Oxford on the 19th, East Street Tap in Brighton on the 25th, Poco Loco in Chatham on the 26th, and a 1 November launch at Matchstick Piehouse Co-op with Goalies and Wagults.
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“the seeds we sow are sprouting buds nonetheless” sounds like the record of a band talking to each other about getting older, watching their city mutate, and trying to make something personal in the gaps. It doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t pretend to. It just grows anyway.
