DMA'S have never been shy about wearing their influences on their sleeve, but their new single might be the most unfiltered distillation of them yet. The Sydney trio announced their self-titled fifth album today, due August 7 via Wonderlick Entertainment, Sony Music Australia, and RCA UK, and shared "Heatin Park" as its second preview. Where March's "My Baby's Place" was warm and melodic, this one is a wall of fuzz.
"Heatin Park" takes its name from Manchester's Heaton Park and sounds like it was recorded with the venue's sheer scale in mind. My Bloody Valentine-style lead guitar grinds against gritty, distorted vocals over a Britpop framework that could have come from an early Oasis session if Kevin Shields had been running the board. It is a stark contrast to "My Baby's Place," which was the band's first entirely self-produced and self-recorded track, and the distance between the two suggests DMA'S are using the self-titled LP to stretch in several directions at once.
Lead guitarist Matt Mason described the track's origins in a statement: "'Heatin Park' started as an old forgotten demo banged into a new sound for us, and that collision is what gives it its feral energy. The album is called DMA'S because that's exactly what it is and we're keen to play it for you all."
DMA'S have spent the last decade building a reputation as one of Australia's most reliable live draws, filling rooms and festival slots at Glastonbury, Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Splendour in the Grass with a sound that splits the difference between Madchester and Sydney's inner-west indie scene. Their last album, How Many Dreams?, arrived in March 2023, and while it was catchy and ambitious, it left some listeners feeling like the band had only grabbed the moment with one hand. A self-titled record in the fifth-album slot feels like a reset, a statement that this is the definitive version of what DMA'S sound like.
The band wraps up a UK run in May with remaining dates in Nottingham (Rock City, May 20-21, the second night already sold out), Norwich (UEA, May 22), and Warrington (Neighbourhood, May 24). Those shows continue the Hills End tenth-anniversary celebration, which kicked off with a sold-out February run. Later this year, DMA'S head home for an Australian headline tour opening in Brisbane in November, with stops in Melbourne and a hometown closing night at the Sydney Opera House Forecourt, where they'll play a special Hills End anniversary set alongside the new material.
The self-titled DMA'S is out August 7. If "Heatin Park" is any indication, the band's noise-to-melody ratio is shifting toward the former, and that is not a bad place to be heading into an album cycle.