Dance Called Memory


Dance Called Memory is the fourth studio album by American indie pop band Nation of Language. It was released on September 19, 2025, via Sub Pop in LP, CD and digital formats.

Background

The album was produced by Holy Ghost! member Nick Millhiser, who also recorded and mixed it, and mastered by Heba Kadry. The band's debut release on Sub Pop, it features ten songs and succeeds the band's 2023 full-length release, Strange Disciple.
"Inept Apollo" was released on May 15, 2025, as the first single of the album, alongside a music video directed by John MacKay. It was followed by the second single, "I'm Not Ready for the Change", on June 16, 2025.

Reception

Flood referred to the album as "a fuzzy electronic project that's both introspective and danceable, with flanged New Order–styled guitar parts sprinkled in to give their sound a refreshed feel." Hester Aalberts of Dutch music magazine Oor praised Ian Devaney's voice saying it "marinates so well" with the album, noting that it is "melodically perfectly fine". John Aizlewood of Mojo said, "At their best... they offer a seemingly contradictory melancholic uplift", and he concluded, "Yes, they're flavour of the month, but they're the real deal too."
AllMusics Marcy Donelson described the album as "danceable, eccentric, and immaculate at once, often using space to emphasize alienation as well as its shifting minimalist instrumentation." BrooklynVegan commented that Dance Called Memory "feels closer to Cocteau Twins or My Bloody Valentine than Kraftwerk," calling it the "first Nation of Language album where guitar may actually be the most prominent instrument."
The album received a rating of seven from PopMatters reviewer John Bergstrom, who remarked about the album that it is "full of squiggly, pulsating vintage synthesizer sounds and steady electronic beats" and called it the band's "most introspective and darkest record to date." Writing for The Line of Best Fit, Michael Hoffman gave the project a score of seven and referred to it as "a very good Nation of Language album – perhaps their most tonally varied since the debut."

Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

Nation of Language

  • Ian Richard Devaney – vocals, synthesizer, guitar, bass, percussion, harmonica, artwork, layout, photography
  • Aidan Noell – vocals, synthesizer, percussion, artwork, layout
  • Alex MacKay – vocals, bass, artwork, layout

Additional contributors