WINTERSLEEP RETURNS WITH WISHING MOON, OUT TODAY
VIA DINE ALONE RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “ABYSS” HERE
WISHING MOON VINYL ORDERS HERE
BUY / STREAM WISHING MOON HERE
2026 U.K. & EUROPEAN TOUR DATES COMMENCE APRIL 10, CANADIAN TOUR DATES BEGIN ON MAY 9. TICKETS ON SALE NOW - FULL DATES BELOW
"Without skipping a beat, lead single "I Got a Feeling" sees the band immediately tap back into the type of rollicking, brooding wave of a groove they've always ridden to the crest of anthemic passion. Exclaim!, Most Anticipated Albums of 2026
"Paul Murphy’s voice stretches out defiantly at the midpoint in Stranger Now, Wintersleep’s latest single, exposing a central belief within the Halifax rock band’s upcoming and eighth studio album." CBC Music, 20 Albums We Can't Wait To Hear in 2026
Photo Credit : Justin Rix // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, Wintersleep release their new album, Wishing Moon, their eighth full-length album in a span of more than two decades. It’s no easy thing to sustain a band for more than 20 years. To come together and nurture an artistic project across two decades is a statement of belief: in oneself, in one’s bandmates, in the profound connections produced by the creative process, and in the richness of the world around us—since all art is a result of having noticed what it feels like to live here, and the drive to make sense of that feeling.
Canadian indie-rock veterans Wintersleep belong to this group of artists. At this stage in their career, the celebrated band’s five members— Paul Murphy, guitarist Tim D’Eon, keyboardist Jon Samuel, bassist Chris Bell, and drummer Loel Campbell—are possessed of a deep gratitude and humility that accompany any creatives who get to make a life-long go of making art with the people they love. But there are still wonderful mysteries and shadowy corners of experience that they have yet to uncover.
To help celebrate the release of their new record, the band is sharing the new video for “Abyss”, a song about “surviving the late stage capitalism shit storm — social media feeds, billionaire chaos, and everything sold off beneath our feet — while realizing that love doesn’t disappear when the world does,” explains Murphy. “Knowing we’re at, or past the breaking point, and still choosing tenderness — not as a political response necessarily, but as a way to preserve our own sense of self and sanity through it all.”
On the video, director Griffin O'Toole says that “the lyrics speak to the uncertainty we all feel living through current global issues, climate change being a big one that the guys mentioned thinking a lot about in the songwriting process. For the video, we wanted to make something that related in a literal way to the song’s lyrics — the band finds themselves singing in an ever murkier ‘abyss’ — but it was also important to us to try and capture in the visuals how a song can have more than one face and can speak to something that’s scary for us all while also having an optimistic sound that’s fun to listen to.”
WATCH / SHARE “ABYSS” HERE
MORE ABOUT WISHING MOON
Recorded at producer Nicolas Vernhes’ (The War on Drugs, Spoon) studio in the Mojave Desert near Pioneertown, the collection of 12 songs evidences a renewed vitality and energy: The band’s branches of prog-, indie-, folk-, and alternative-rock are in full bloom, stretching skyward with grateful, open, curious hearts.
Wishing Moon crackles with the energy of that sort of reinvigoration. The opening title track throbs with a Wurlitzer electric piano before bass and drums set off at a steady clip, setting a dreamy kraut-rock scene that builds, slowly, to a crescendo of hammered keys and soaring guitars while Murphy cries on the chorus: ‘Temperamental, I’m alive, I’m alone/Transcendental, I’m alive, I’m alone’. “Stranger Now” follows, with heavy desert-rock chording and sand-smoothed fuzz leads. (D’Eon attributes the record’s atmosphere and macabre grooves to the Mojave, famously channeled in the ominous, titanic riffing of bands like Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age.) “The band’s always at its strongest when there’s a fundamental groove that’s rolling along,” remarks Campbell. “I just felt a natural gravitation when we got into the room, like this propulsion and relentlessness. There’s a certain meditation within the grooves.”
WATCH / STREAM “STRANGER NOW” (VISUALIZER) HERE
WATCH / SHARE “I GOT A FEELING” (LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO) HERE
“Wait for the Tide” recalls pre-Wintersleep days, even, when Murphy and D’Eon created post-hardcore and prog-rock chaos in their high school band Kary. “My Mind Always” centers on a hypnotic, off-kilter acoustic riff, an unsettling, stoned sway of a love song. “Abyss” is an alt-rock endtimes anthem, feeling like it’s ready to pull apart at the seams at any moment despite its major-key gallop: ‘We’re living in the abyss now/In the life affirming bliss!’ Murphy sings.
For Murphy, the record demonstrates a band that still takes chances. “We wanted to shake it up and do something more challenging,” he explains. That desire is partly why they chose to work with Vernhes, a producer they’d never created with. “We needed that energy of not knowing,” he continues. “I remember thinking that it should be uncomfortable, because it’s like getting in touch with who you are again, individually and as a group. Songs are really intimate things, and getting a song right on a record is a really intimate process. I think of collaboration with producers as a mirror, and felt especially in this case, it revealed a lot. Most importantly, I think Wishing Moon just has this living, breathing quality.”
WATCH / SHARE “YOU & I” (VISUALIZER) HERE
BUY / STREAM WISHING MOON HERE
WINTERSLEEP ON TOUR
Friday, April 10, 26 Newcastle, UK - Little Buidings
Saturday, April 11, 26 Glasgow, UK - King Tuts
Sunday, April 12, 26 Manchester, UK - Deaf Institute
Monday, April 13, 26 Birmingham, UK - Hare & Hounds
Tuesday, April 14, 26 London, UK - The Lower Third
Thursday, April 16, 26 Paris, FR - Supersonic
Saturday, April 18, 26 Amsterdam, NL - Upstairs @ Paradiso
Sunday, April 19, 26 Cologne, DE - Garagen
Tuesday, April 21, 26 Hamburg, DE - Molotow
Wednesday, April 22 Husum DE - Speicher
Thursday, April 23, 26 Berlin, DE - Mikropol
Saturday, April 25, 26 Zurich, CH - Bogen F
Saturday, May 9, 26 Saint John, NB Imperial Theatre
Sunday, May 10, 26 Moncton, NB Capitol Theatre
Monday, May 11, 26 Fredericton, NB The Playhouse
Thursday, May 14, 26 Windsor, NS Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia
Friday, May 15, 26 Halifax, NS Marquee Ballroom
Saturday, May 16, 26 Halifax, NS Marquee Ballroom
Thursday, June 4, 26 Victoria, BC Capitol Ballroom
Saturday, June 6, 26 Vancouver, BC Hollywood Theatre
Sunday, June 7, 26 Kelowna, BC Revelry Food + Music Hub
Wednesday, June 10, 26 Edmonton, AB The Starlite Room
Thursday, June 11, 26 Calgary, AB The Palace Theatre
Friday, June 12, 26 Saskatoon, SK The Capitol Music Club
Saturday, June 13, 26 Winnipeg, MB Park Theatre
Wednesday, June 17, 26 London, ON London Music Hall
Thursday, June 18, 26 Hamilton, ON Bridgeworks
Friday, June 19, 26 Toronto, ON Masonic Temple - The Concert Hall
Saturday, June 20, 26 Ottawa, ON The Bronson
