Grungey Londoners Dead Dads Club have released their third single, ‘Volatile Child’ a bluesy, indie number with a rumbling rhythm and emotion-filled vocals. The single is another fantastic glance at what fans can expect from the band’s recently announced debut self-titled album, due for release on 23 January 2026.
Boasting a slightly different sound to the groups debut and second singles, ‘Don’t Blame The Son For The Sins Of The Father’, and ‘Goosebumps’, ‘Volatile Child’ still manages to keep in with the theme of the album: grief and isolation. As the name Dead Dads Club suggests, frontman Chilli Jesson has been remarkably open and honest regarding the inspirations for the tracks, the primary focus of these being the loss of his father.
The track is produced by Jesson’s fellow Fontaines D.C. member, and friend of the band, Carlos O’Connell (who also produced the Londoners first track). His influence is not lost either, with the band clearly taking influences from the harsher tracks on 2024 release Romance, an album which Jesson himself toured and worked on.
In an interview with NME, Jesson said that the track “follows a young man standing at the edge of his breaking point in a small YMCA room in Paris”. He goes on to describe how (rather personally) he is “lost in the noise of grief and isolation” when he is “pulled back from the brink (upon seeing) a vivid grounding vision of his late father.” A clearly deeply personal track, ‘Volatile Child’ loses none of the emotion its lyrics hold.
Kicking off immediately with a harsh drum kick, the single immediately sends a shock through the system before Jesson begins to describe his surroundings with raw emotion and passion. with a rapidfire bassline (echoing a racing heartbeat) he seems to come to a realisation that he “just can’t back out now,” and sends the music into the background for just a moment.
The track then steps back into a more lilting, slower rhythm, the clarity coinciding with Jesson himself coming to realisations about his life. Coming to realisations of how “precious” life is, the Lambeth-born frontman seems almost at peace for a moment before the spiraling begins once again.
As the instrumentation speeds up and intensifies, the track is sent back into overdrive with the thudding drums and pulsating strings heard in the opening verse.
The emotion rippling throughout this release is not hidden for a single second, a raw expression of the “volatility” of a seventeen year-old going through an existential crisis filled with grief and panic. Taking fans on a rollercoaster of relentless cries for help, distress, anger, and overwhelming loneliness, Dead Dads Club have made it incredibly clear that they know exactly how to load their tracks with passion and intensity.
This all comes to fruition in the instrumental as the tune nears its conclusion. With a sudden build-up of drums, the band launch into an ecstasy-filled wall of noise, with echoing screams, FX, and synths launching the listener into a void of raw emotion and fragility.
If ‘Volatile Child’ is anything to go off, there is no doubt that the release of the band’s debut album will start 2026 off with a bang. Seemingly effortlessly putting out belter after belter, Dead Dads Club are clearly a force to be reckoned with. It is only a matter of time before they gain recognition as a leading force in the latest wave of alternative indie bands.
Words by George Connell
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