The Chats are heading back to Australian stages with a new record on the way, a fresh single in the wild and 17 shows booked for November and December. The Sunshine Coast punk trio have announced their third album, Half Cut, due 5 March 2027 via Virgin Records, and they’re taking the new material into some properly sweaty rooms first.
The first taste is ‘Off It’, released today (28 October) alongside a new video. It opens the forthcoming album and signals a band willing to stretch its sound without sanding off the rough edges.
Have The Chats have king of grown up?
It’s a different world from the one that turned ‘Smoko’ into a viral anthem in 2017. Since their last album, The Chats have been on the road with Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters and The Hives, while taking their own ferocious live show across continents. Now they’re returning home for a run built around clubs rather than cavernous stages.
“Half Cut is a fun rock and roll record, but it’s maybe a little more open than stuff we’ve written in the past,” vocalist Eamon Sandwith says. “I definitely hesitate to use the word ‘mature,’ but it’s a bit of a progression, I’d say.”
Recorded at Maple Sound Studio in Los Angeles with Frenzal Rhomb’s Jay Whalley, Half Cut reportedly moves into more expansive territory while keeping the band’s unmistakably Australian sense of humour. The tracklist includes ‘Half Arsed’, ‘Hanging Shit’ and ‘Brown Bottle Flu’; the songs tackle everything from hangovers and confrontation to reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Whether that amounts to maturity is up for debate. What isn’t: The Chats are doing three nights apiece at Sydney’s Crowbar and Melbourne’s Tote, with two Brisbane shows and a sizeable Tasmanian run in the mix. For a band that’s spent years scaling up overseas, the chance to see them in rooms like these is the real selling point.
The Chats 2026 Australian tour dates
- Friday 13 November — Crowbar, Brisbane
- Saturday 14 November — Crowbar, Brisbane
- Sunday 15 November — Singing Bird, Frankston
- Thursday 19 November — Crowbar, Sydney
- Friday 20 November — Crowbar, Sydney
- Saturday 21 November — Crowbar, Sydney
- Thursday 26 November — The Tote, Melbourne
- Friday 27 November — The Tote, Melbourne
- Saturday 28 November — The Tote, Melbourne
- Friday 4 December — Altar, Hobart
- Saturday 5 December — Forth Pub, Forth
- Sunday 6 December — Royal Oak, Launceston
- Wednesday 9 December — Jive, Adelaide
- Thursday 10 December — Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
- Friday 11 December — Indian Ocean Hotel, Scarborough
- Saturday 12 December — Rosemount Hotel, Perth
- Sunday 13 December — Rosemount Hotel, Perth
Tickets are on sale now via thechats.com. Half Cut arrives on 5 March 2027.
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