Matty Healy has never been one for standard promotional rollouts. Rather than issuing a polished teaser or coordinating a synchronized social media campaign, the frontman chose a community gathering in North Shields to deliver the latest word on the next studio release from The 1975. The update arrived on screen at Salt Market Social during a September 25 event for Sunday For Sammy, a North East charity where Healy serves as a patron. It was an unvarnished setting for news that listeners have been anticipating for months.
The evening was organized around a set by The 9075, a tribute act with an unusually direct connection to the group they emulate. In July, Healy arranged to fly the cover band out to Malibu to play during his stag party, an appearance that eventually saw him join them on stage. When his recorded video message was projected onto the venue screens in North Shields, Healy initially leaned into his familiar habit of self-effacing humor, telling the crowd that he was never actually going to complete the record. He quickly walked back the quip, clarifying that the album is now almost done.
That brief comment represents the most concrete progress report to emerge from the group in quite some time. The band have stayed largely out of sight since their debut headline slot at Glastonbury in 2025. Leading up to that festival milestone, they undertook a visual overhaul, updating their imagery and band logo before stepping onto the stage. Once that appearance concluded, their attention shifted entirely to writing and recording. Healy offered a small window into that process back in February, explaining that he had practically moved into the studio while running on very little sleep. Outside of those long hours, he had rarely stepped out, with one of the few exceptions being an earlier Sunday For Sammy event where he played acoustic versions of songs by The La's and James Taylor, joined by a guest appearance from Lewis Capaldi.
What kind of release will emerge from that seclusion remains an open question. During an audience question and answer session at Gateshead College last December, Healy acknowledged that the band had stockpiled enough material to fill multiple albums. The comment came after a student asked about the word DOGS, which had been printed across George Daniel's drum kit and projected on the stage screens as their Glastonbury headline set drew to a close. Healy confirmed that DOGS was an album title, revealing that the sessions had produced two full records. He admitted at the time that the work might ultimately be condensed into a single project or released across two distinct records.
That generous stack of material reflects comments made by Jamie Oborne, the founder of Dirty Hit and the quartet's longtime manager. Speaking before the band took the stage at Glastonbury in 2025, Oborne mentioned that the group were deep into tracking what he described as a pretty extraordinary record. He stressed that he was talking with the four members constantly throughout its development. In Oborne's view, the band had earned the freedom to move at their own pace, arguing that music facing this degree of public anticipation required deliberate care rather than a hurried schedule.
Whenever the finished material arrives, it will represent the band's first collection of original work since 2022. That project, Being Funny In A Foreign Language, saw them reign in their maximalist impulses across a lean eleven song tracklist built around tighter arrangements. With Healy now confirming that the final sessions are concluding, listeners will soon learn whether the group plan to return to the expansive scale suggested in Gateshead, or stick with the more disciplined format of their last outing.
