On October 9, Teenage Fanclub will release their new album Do Not Dare To Dream on Merge Records. The band’s 13th studio album follows the acclaimed 2023 release Nothing Lasts Forever and finds the group continuing to evolve their signature blend of melodic guitars, warm harmonies, and reflective songwriting. 

The band is excited to share the album's lead single “Day In The Sun,” alongside an accompanying music video filmed on location at Black Bay Studio on Great Bernera by Donald Milne. A melodic meditation on renewal and shifting perspective, the track is available now on all digital platforms for playlist consideration.

For nearly four decades, Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley have been at the heart of Teenage Fanclub as one of indie rock’s most enduring and beloved bands. On Do Not Dare To Dream the band continues to refine their signature blend of melodic guitars, warm harmonies, and reflective songwriting. As Blake puts it, “It’s difficult when it comes to… coming up with a name for an album. Especially after you’ve made 12 of them.”

Taking its title from Blake’s wryly named “I Do Not Dare To Dream,” the album gently pushes back on hollow optimism while still embracing a quietly hopeful outlook. “Those ‘dare to dream’ sentiments are kind of ridiculous,” Blake explains, “I don’t think the world works that way.” Instead, like its predecessor Nothing Lasts Forever the record is grounded in resilience, taking stock of an uncertain world without succumbing to despair, and finding clarity and comfort in everyday moments.

Throughout Do Not Dare To Dream, Teenage Fanclub balance introspective lyricism with richly layered arrangements shaped by decades of collaboration. The songs unfold with a natural ease, drawing on acoustic textures, organ tones, and interwoven guitars to create a warm, immersive atmosphere. Reflecting on the album’s outlook, McGinley notes, “We can still be cheerful and optimistic in the face of things not being great.”

Recorded at Black Bay Studio on the remote Scottish island of Great Bernera, the album captures a band deeply attuned to collaboration and place. Great Bernera is the band's most remote recording location yet, which helped the band focus on the work but also put them in a place of awe, surrounded as they were by the crashing sea and ancient ruins. Teenage Fanclub likes to take advantage of what a studio has available to use, and at Black Bay the band found a Domus church organ (prominently heard on many songs, including “Over And Over”) and a lot of different synthesizers.

Joined by longtime members Euros Childs, Francis Macdonald, and David McGowan, this quintet has played together long enough now that neither of Teenage Fanclub’s principal songwriters and guitarists feel the need to fuss over their songs or work up arrangements before they enter the studio. They’d rather wait for the rest of the group’s input. The result is a collection of songs suffused with the proper perspective of musicians who have been around for a while, recorded in a place that has been around even longer.

As Blake puts it, “I think what happens is you just move from one thing into the next and before you know it, 30 years have passed. McGinley adds: “Yeah, it’s been a while since we started doing this thing we do, but to us it feels like no time at all. In the place where we made the record people would have been singing thousands of years ago. Life is short, but music is eternal.”