THE CHARLATANS – ‘WE ARE LOVE’ ALBUM REVIEW

By Resonate | March 4, 2026

Straight into the top ten, The Charlatans’ first album in eight years, We Are Love, finds them on form with the organ-dominated, psychedelic-tinged signature sound that defines their work.

Produced by alternative veteran Stephen Street and Dev Hynes, flourishes of trip-hop, guitar textures, and stream-of-consciousness lyrics from Tim Burgess pour over hard-driving mid-tempo grooves in the first half, closing with a series of complex, soaring landscapes. Highlights include opening track Kingdom of Ours, led by Rhodes’ electric piano into an uneasy, layered seven-beat crescendo of edgy power chords, and Out On Our Own, a shifting, cinematic multi-section dreamscape of orchestras and lush sitars, where Burgess sings a tale of independence and connections lost with the passage of time.

Definitely one for the faithful, it’s recommended listening for anyone curious about the timeless Birmingham outfit’s continued relevance or modern psychedelic in general – in particular, the lengthy closing track sounds quite a bit like Tame Impala.

With no wasted time, the only knock is that it doesn’t have a tune as immediate as One To Another, but the album as a whole clearly had a lot of money, time, and affection invested in it, and the results show it. A late-career highlight.

WORDS FROM DINO BREWSTER