Radio Free Alice - 'Rule 31'
With ‘Rule 31’, Radio Free Alice sharpen their ascent from underground fascination to international breakout, delivering a new wave/post-punk jolt that crystallises exactly why their name keeps surfacing in sold-out venue announcements across the UK, Europe, the US and Australia.
Written on the road and born from a spontaneous soundcheck bassline, ‘Rule 31’ carries the intuitive energy of a band moving at full velocity. Frontman Noah Learmonth recalls the track evolving almost accidentally, its foundation laid backstage before the band slipped into Peter Katis’ Connecticut home-studio on a rare two-day window off tour. You can feel that immediacy in the finished cut: sharp, wiry guitars spar with propulsive drums while Learmonth’s vocals slice through the mix with a restless urgency. The band have always borrowed fluently from post-punk’s angular vocabulary, but here, they deliver something leaner, louder and unmistakably forward-driving, purpose-built for the heaving rooms they’re now effortlessly filling.
And those rooms keep getting bigger. What was expected to be a modest UK return in late 2025 rapidly turned into a phenomenon: six sold-out London headlines, feverish crowds, and even a fan brandishing a Radio Free Alice tattoo across his torso. Their momentum ricocheted straight into Reading & Leeds, packed-out US dates, and yet another string of UK shows that sold out as fast as they were announced. Their finale at London’s Scala marks the end of a triumphant UK/IRE run, before the quartet head home for dates in Sydney and Meredith, and a February support slot with Geese that is already fully sold out.
If ‘Rule 31’ feels towering, it’s because it arrives in the wake of Empty Words, the band’s strongest and most cohesive EP yet. Produced across Connecticut, Bristol and London with Katis and Ali Chant, the project cast Radio Free Alice into the crosshairs of a much wider audience. Lead single Toyota Camry earned heavy BBC 6 Music rotation, and DORK praised the EP as “smart, stylish and already sounding like a future cult classic.” Where Empty Words examined a culture stuck in nostalgic feedback loops -“a house party that was definitely over,” as Learmonth put it-’Rule 31’ feels like the band breaking the door down and refusing to linger in the debris.
On ‘Rule 31’, Radio Free Alice don’t just reinforce their reputation, they expand it. It’s the sound of a band in motion, growing not by reinvention but by pure momentum, honing the chaos of life on tour into something polished, pulsing and unmistakably their own. With UK and European festivals locked in for 2026, including Tramlines and Truck, Radio Free Alice’s rise no longer feels like a surprise. It feels like inevitability.
‘Rule 31’ is a reminder of why Radio Free Alice are fast becoming one of the most vital new bands in the global post-punk landscape, and why getting a ticket is only going to get harder.
Words by Laura Maxwell
