SICK JOY RELEASE NEW SINGLE
Copyright: Steve Gullick
Sick Joy have announced the release of their new single ‘Video Game’, offering the latest glimpse into their forthcoming second album More Forever, due out on 30th January 2026.
Produced by acclaimed producer Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Chris Cornell, Them Crooked Vultures, Mark Lanegan), the album sees the Brighton-based band venture into darker, more introspective territory. More Forever captures a feeling of emotional unrest and release, balancing raw intensity with vulnerability as it reflects the disorder, contradictions and catharsis of modern life.
Speaking on the new single ‘Video Game’, vocalist and guitarist Mykl Barton shares, “It’s a recount of watching another version of myself die. It’s grief. It’s spite. It’s a persistence. It’s moving forward whilst looking back. It’s telling all the secrets I’ve been keeping from myself to the world. It’s whatever the fuck you want it to be.”
Born from Newcastle’s underground and now based in Brighton, Sick Joy have always thrived in contrast — beauty and ruin, euphoria and despair. Led by the raw intensity of singer and multi-instrumentalist Mykl Barton, the band have built their identity on this duality. With More Forever, due for release on 30th January 2026, they push it further than ever before.
Recorded in isolation at a remote studio in Spain with Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan, Chris Cornell), before being mixed by Josh “Hoagie” Harrison (Royal Blood, The Cure) and mastered by Katie Tavini, the album twists Sick Joy’s alt-rock DNA into something darker, sharper and more expansive. Industrial edges slice through widescreen choruses, bruising drums collide with jagged synths, and the lyrics confront systemic damage, grief, love and survival with unflinching honesty.
Since their emergence, Sick Joy have become one of the UK’s most vital rock acts — touring with Pixies and Pearl Jam, sharing stages with Dinosaur Pile-Up and Deaf Havana, and igniting festival crowds from Reading & Leeds to 2000 Trees. Their debut album cemented a reputation for a band unafraid to bare both teeth and heart.
More Forever doesn’t simply continue that story, it rips it wide open. Heavier, hungrier and more human than ever, Sick Joy step forward with their most ambitious statement to date.
