D:Ream new album news

D:Ream return on 23 July with Open Hearts, Open Minds, the band’s first album since 2011’s In Memory Of….

It’ll be preceded on 16 April by their new single, the retro-sounding Meet Me At Midnight.

D:Ream first returned to the public consciousness during the pandemic when their signature song, Things Can Only Get Better became an anthem for Nottingham’s residents as they blasted it when clapping for key workers each week. D:Ream frontman Pete Cunnah was sent a video of the song being played in Nottingham by a friend.

“I got shivers. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he told the BBC. “You do your thing and make a record for all the clubbers in the early 90s to dance to, and the next thing everyone’s hanging out of windows singing it during a crisis. I was in tears.”

The song was, of course, also used as the political anthem which New Labour chose to soundtrack their path to victory, with Cunnah saying that it “captured the prevailing winds of change”.

D:Ream formed in 1992 and are, of course, most famous for their New Labour-soundtracking hit, Things Can Only Get Better, which netted them a No.1 in 1994. They split in 1997, but reformed in 2008 with founding members Peter Cunnah and Al Mackenzie.

Amazingly, Things Can Only Get Better was only a modest hit on its first release in 1993, hitting No.23. It was only on its re-release the year after that it became a phenomenon. Their next Top 10 hit came in 1995 with Shoot Me With Your Love.

D:Ream new album Open Hearts, Open Minds is released through Radar Music via Sony Orchard. Sadly, former member Professor Brian Cox isn’t involved…