OCEANS ATE ALASKA ENTER A NEW ERA WITH ‘PURGE’, SHARE NEW SINGLE “BRING YOU BACK”

Purge, due January 22, 2027, marks the start of a new era for OCEANS ATE ALASKA. It is the band’s first full-length album with new vocalist Joel Heywood and the first of their career released completely independently. Today they share its latest single, “Bring You Back,” following the previously released “Endless Hollow” and “Onsra,” with a music video from Shaun Hodson (Sleep Token) premiering at 10AM PST / 1PM EST / 6PM UK as album pre-orders go live here.

“Bring You Back” comes from one of the hardest stretches of Heywood’s life, when his wife was pulled under by prenatal and postnatal depression. “She was at the lowest point I’d ever seen her in my life and all I wanted to do was save her,” Heywood says. “No matter how much love and care or attention to her issues I gave, it’s chemical, and nothing I could do would help her to come back to who she was. For her it just felt endless.” Hodson’s video pushes that story into deliberately heightened territory. “It’s an over the top version of events of her becoming a ‘ghost of herself,’ a ghost of the person she once was,” Heywood explains, “and I felt powerless no matter how much I tried.“

That song sets the tone for an album built on mental health from front to back. Heywood describes Purge as a set of diary entries covering the everyday battles he and many others face: the weight of online negativity, substance abuse, love and relationships, childhood trauma and the lowest point of suicidal thoughts, with what he calls “peaks of positivity sprinkled in.” The title came from reading about trephination, an ancient surgery that opens the skull to relieve blood and pressure. “Purge came from wanting to finally get this all out of me,” he says, “to let it bleed from me onto the songs and into the pages of the lyrics, and to try to start to feel free of things I’ve held inside for so long.“

The way Purge was made reflects that reset. Heywood, drummer Chris Turner, guitaristJames Kennedy and bassist Mike Stanton produced the album themselves and tracked it entirely in house, bringing in Nick Sampson (Polyphia, Erra) to mix and Mike Kalajian (Bad Omens, A Day To Remember) to master the album. After three albums with Fearless Records, every decision this time belonged to the band. “We recorded everything in house instead of going to another studio,” Turner says. “This was pleasant as we didn’t have any time pressure, so we could really dial everything in exactly how we want it to be.“

Fans across Europe and the UK will hear Purge live less than two weeks after its release, when the band head out in support of Signs of the Swarm, alongside Ten56 and Face Yourself. The 29-date run opens February 3 in Frankfurt and closes March 7 in Antwerp, including a London stop at O2 Academy Islington on February 26.