Youth Group’s New Album ‘Big Whoop’ Out Now

Youth Group have today released their new album ‘Big Whoop’ via Impressed Recordings in conjunction with Cassell Records. Featuring their current single ‘Saturday Dad’ and previous singles, ‘The Joke’ and ‘Siberia’, the record combines the familiar Youth Group magic with some new explorations into a more dance-rock feel.

Their first record release in six years, ‘Big Whoop’ is the band’s sixth album and journeys into a dark synth and beats world with Youth Group’s long-time friend and producer Wayne Connolly at the helm. The tracks are a fresh approach and some say, this is their best record yet.

The beloved Sydney band are also kicking off their national tour tonight in their hometown with a show at The Lansdowne Hotel, followed by Valley Loft in Brisbane this Saturday, Milk Bar in Perth on Friday November 7, wrapping the tour in Melbourne at Northcote Social Club on Saturday November 8.

2025 also marks the 20th anniversary of their recording of ‘Forever Young’, which went on to become Australia’s first number 1 single on the ARIA Digital Singles Chart. Before ‘Forever Young’, though, Youth Group were already a much-loved indie rock band on Australia’s underground touring circuit. With two albums under their belt, their debut ‘Urban & Eastern’ and 2004’s follow-up ‘Skeleton Jar’, the band had built a solid reputation for sharply observed lyrics and a wistful, chiming and effervescent sound.

Formed at the end of the twentieth century in Sydney’s inner-west, it was 2004’s ‘Skeleton Jar’ that really started to spread the word about Youth Group, and the skill and depth of the extraordinary songwriting on show turned listeners into true believers. Scoring four and five star reviews, it also made fans out of Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla (who invited Youth Group on tour with them in the US), the music director of then hit drama ‘The O.C.’ (who featured the band’s song ‘Shadowland’ and their version of ‘Forever Young’ in the TV show) and world-renowned LA label Epitaph, who signed the band to their roster for the US/Europe.

The band went on to release two more acclaimed albums, 2006’s ‘Casino Twilight Dogs’ which spawned crowd favourites ‘Start Today Tomorrow’ and ‘Daisychains’, and 2008’s ‘The Night Is Ours’, and toured the country supporting Coldplay on the UK rockers’ 2006 Australian arena tour.

After a decade long absence, Youth Group returned in 2019 with ‘Australian Halloween’, propelled by singles ‘Cusp’ and ‘Erskineville Nights’. The album received glowing reviews and was anointed Album of the Week and one of the Top 50 Albums of 2019 by Double J, all proof that the band had lost none of their charm while they’d been gone.

Through the travails of covid and distance (drummer Danny lives in the US), the band carved out pockets of time to work on ‘Big Whoop’ with Connolly. The record is full of surprising delights – songs about new parental angst, memories of Canberra teenage years, meditations on middle-age – all set to a driving Sydchester sound.