Cliffords have spoken to NME about new music, and revealed that they have a “refined”, inward-looking debut album on the way. Watch the interview in full above.
The NME 100 alumni caught up with us backstage at Mad Cool 2026, shortly before they took to the stage in the Mahou Cinco Estrellas tent for one of the most memorable sets of the week. Their appearance at the 10th anniversary of the Madrid festival came as part of a stacked summer of live shows for the Cork band – having already supported Mumford & Sons at BST Hyde Park and opened for Florence + The Machine over the past week alone.
“It’s all been a crazy experience,” said frontwoman Iona Lynch. “It was also so amazing just to watch Mumford & Sons, [and] we are obsessed with Florence.
“We just were saying actually that we all had this mutual experience where your dad calls you in after two IPAs and he says ‘Let’s watch Florence + The Machine play Glastonbury’,” she joked. “I’ve had that many times in my life, so to actually open for her was incredible.”
The busy summer of touring comes following Cliffords releasing their debut EP ‘Strawberry Scented’ in 2024, and following it up last year with their critically acclaimed EP, ‘Salt of the Lee’. Towards the end of 2025, the band released the standalone single ‘Marsh’, but have yet to follow it up with any new material.
“We’re working on a new project right now,” keyboardist Locon O’Toole revealed to NME. “After this little run we’re going to be in the studio recording some new music which will hopefully be out soon. Maybe it’s time for a full album…”
“It’s so exciting going into it because we’ve spent so many months writing,” he added. “We had such a massive year last year and basically this year we just locked ourselves in a small room in Blackpool and wrote from 9am to 5pm every day.”
Lynch added that the majority of the writing has been done between Cork and Blackpool over the span of four months, and explained that the heavier themes of mental health seen in the single ‘Marsh’ will be prevalent throughout the upcoming debut album too.
“I think I’ll always do that. Writing lyrics for me is really fun because it’s the only time I get to understand myself. When you’re writing, you can see yourself on the page after a while,” she shared. “Then it’s so nice to play a gig because you see people singing it back and it also means so much to them. It makes you realise how close we all are as people and how much your experiences are also someone else’s experiences.
“So this album deals with lots of things. Good, bad, sad, and all of the above. I think that’s why I love it so much. It’s all about that contrast of life that we keep living through.”
“We’ve put a lot of work into our sound too,” bassist Gavin Dawkins added. “We’ve really refined our sound on this album… so hopefully it’s good!”
As well as playing a run of festivals across Europe this summer, Cliffords also went on to join Wolf Alice in Newcastle this past weekend for a huge show at Exhibition Park. Speaking to NME about how they felt about the then-upcoming gig, Cliffords revealed that they have always been fans of the London rock giants, but only just started to realise why they have been compared to them so many times over the past two years.
“It’s a dream support slot. We’ve always loved their music,” Dawkins said, before Lynch added: “It’s funny, ever since we started as a band, basically every article has compared us to Wolf Alice. We’ve been listening to them for so long and they are such a big inspiration for us… but we were never 100 per cent sure why there was always the comparison.”
“We just see it as ‘We will aspire to be that incredible’. They’re amazing, and it’s so lovely to watch them play and to listen to their music. Their energy and songwriting is just incredible, so I just can’t wait to open for them.”
You can revisit all of NME’s coverage from Mad Cool 2026 here.
NME is the official media partner of Mad Cool.
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