Crewe-based four-piece UNIVERSITY have announced their long-awaited debut album 'McCartney, It’ll Be OK', due for release on the 20th June via Transgressive. The band—Zak Bowker (vocals/guitar), Ewan Barton (bass), Joel Smith (drums), and unofficial mascot Eddie—also share a brand-new single 'Curwen, alongside a captivating video directed by Nina Dellow.
Recorded at Damon Albarn’s Studio 13 in London with genre-defying producer Kwes Darko (Sampa The Great, Denzel Curry), 'McCartney, It’ll Be OK' captures the anarchic charm and dynamic chaos that made their 2023 debut EP 'Title Track' such an exhilarating introduction. UNIVERSITY doubled down on their signature blend of blistering emo-punk catharsis and tongue-in-cheek absurdity, recording the album entirely live to preserve the barely-contained energy that fuels their sound.
“There was a conscious choice in the writing to make it more emotionally varied,” says drummer Joel Smith. “It puts the sounds from the EP into colour. Because we’re influenced by a lot of emo and music that’s extreme, we realised things can only be so miserable unless you have something to contrast it with.”
New single 'Curwen' distills this ethos perfectly. It’s a punchy, scything punk anthem with just enough melody to cling to before it pulls the rug from under you—bursting between moments of clarity and full-throttle breakdowns. Pairing absurdist lyricism with a crushing wall of sound, UNIVERSITY continue to ride the fine line between chaos and craftsmanship.
Speaking on the track, the band offered one of their now-trademark surrealist statements: “Pale sunlight bounds over timid concrete, time jumps like a broken typewriter, the future is past and the past is irrelevant, faces falling in the animal soup of time.”
Watch the new video for 'Curwen' in the player and see the album's full tracklisting below.
'McCartney, It'll Be OK' Tracklist:
Massive Twenty One Pilots Tattoo
Curwen
Gorilla Panic
Hustler’s Metamorphosis
GTA Online
Diamond Song
History Of Iron Maiden Pt. 1
History Of Iron Maiden Pt. 0.5
