We Speak Alternative

Southern Wild Release Sophomore Album The Art Of Feeling Nothing

Published

3 hours ago

November 1, 2026

Southern Wild performing live in Cape Town

Southern Wild live. Photo via @southernwildband.

Cape Town alternative rock outfit Southern Wild released their new album The Art Of Feeling Nothing on October 30, 2026, via Just Music. The record is the second studio album from the band, and it arrives after a journey of six years that shaped both the songs and the people who made them.

The album holds nine tracks and captures the evolution of the band across a long and interrupted recording process. Recording began in 2019 with producer Theo Crous. What was first intended to be a straightforward album session became a much longer story. The arrival of the pandemic brought the process to a halt, and changing circumstances saw the members of the band move in different directions. Frontman Dave spent four years in Zambia, and for long periods the album remained unfinished.

The songs never disappeared. When the band reunited, the members returned to the material with fresh perspectives and a renewed sense of purpose, and the album itself became a reflection of that journey. The first five tracks were written before life pulled the band apart, while the final four emerged after years of separation, capturing two different chapters in their lives. Some albums capture a moment, the band explains. This one captured the people we became while trying to finish it.

Since emerging in 2015, Southern Wild have developed a sound at the meeting point of alternative rock, post rock, neo soul and folk. The band has appeared on the main stages of festivals including Up The Creek, Rocking the Daisies, Smoking Dragon and Oppikoppi, and has opened for Incubus and The Cure during their South African tours. The extended recording process also brought a change in sound and lineup. With the arrival of lead guitarist Conrad Birch, whose expansive guitar work became an integral part of the final sound of the album, Southern Wild now return as a reenergised four piece, ready for a new chapter.

We Speak Alternative

Dominic Fike Returns With Third Album How To Quit Smoking

Published

58 minutes ago

November 1, 2026

We Speak Media

Dominic Fike. Photo via @dominicfike.

Dominic Fike has released his third studio album, How To Quit Smoking, out now through Columbia Records. The album arrived on October 30, 2026, and runs to 15 songs, with Apple Music filing it under Alternative. It is his first full length since Sunburn in 2023 and follows his 2020 debut, What Could Possibly Go Wrong.

The rollout leaned on a run of singles that showed the record’s range. Wallflower served as the lead single, Small Town followed, and Pangea landed late in the campaign, close to the album’s arrival. Fike announced the finished product to his followers with a simple message on release week: album out now. The title, and the hashtag he paired with it, frame the record as a document of habits confronted head on, and the songs move between guitar led confessionals and the melodic pop instincts that made him one of the most watched young artists in alternative music.

Fike was born in Naples, Florida, and broke through at the end of the last decade with a sound that refused to sit in one lane, part indie rock, part hip hop, part bedroom pop. What Could Possibly Go Wrong introduced that blend to a wide audience, and Sunburn deepened it with a more personal, hometown rooted set of songs. How To Quit Smoking now becomes the third chapter, a 15 track statement from an artist who releases albums only when he has something to say. With the record out in the world, attention turns to how Fike will take these songs to the stage, and to which of the new tracks follow Wallflower and Pangea into his live set.