NewDad
Life is all about balance, and for every dream experience that shakes up your world, there’s often a sacrifice to be made. NewDad have had plenty of the former since releasing their debut single ‘How’ in 2020 and steadily building an ever-growing fanbase around their spellbinding dream-pop. They released a critically acclaimed debut album with 2024’s Madra, gained a fan in their ultimate hero, The Cure’s Robert Smith, and toured parts of the world they never imagined they’d visit. But to make all of this possible, the Galway three-piece have had to sacrifice things too.
Around four years ago, the band — singer/guitarist Julie Dawson, guitarist Sean O’Dowd, and drummer Fiachra Parslow — left their home behind and moved to London. The relocation has helped them thrive creatively, but it’s also something Dawson still has mixed feelings about. “Most days I wake up and I’m like, ‘Yes, let’s fucking do this,’ but I do still miss home,” she explains.
That tension — between knowing you’re where you need to be and longing to be somewhere else — colours Altar, NewDad’s highly anticipated second album. Started shortly before the release of Madra, it is deeply informed by Dawson’s yearning for home, for family, and for the place she truly belongs. In many ways, the record is a tribute to Galway.
“The album is where I divulge my love for home,” Dawson says, referencing the title. “It’s the idea that Ireland is the altar — the thing that I worship, in a way.” The metaphor also touches on sacrifice: the band putting hundreds of miles between themselves and the people they cherish. “Sacrifice is another thing that happens at altars,” Dawson laughs. Altar also explores themes of appeasement — “appeasing people, and that’s what you do at altars: appease a higher power.”
“I think of where / I’d like to be / Anywhere but here / Is fine by me,” Dawson sings on the twinkling, slow build of opening track ‘Other Side’. Across that song and the album as a whole, the longing for home grows darker, more anxious, and more survival-focused. “Kneeling at the altar / Hope I get to heaven,” she sighs on ‘Mr Cold Embrace’, a string-laden acoustic piece in which she also questions: “don’t know if I should have left her”.
‘Misery’ interrogates her role in her own unhappiness, acknowledging the cyclical patterns we fall into. “I was like, ‘Can I go home? Do I need to be here? Why am I doing this to myself?’” Inspired by Dante’s Inferno, Dawson wanted the song to feel “surreal and alarming… whispery and freaky”.
The finale, ‘Something Broken’, breaks the pattern of dwelling. Instead, Dawson asks to feel at home where she is now — to laugh harder, to forget what torments her. “It’s more hopeful,” she says. “It’s like, ‘I’m here now — let’s make the best of something that can be really hard.’”
Altar — recorded in January 2025 between studios in Ipswich and London — isn’t only about home. It also charts Dawson’s journey as a musician: grappling with the realities of turning her passion into a profession and navigating the industry as a woman. “When you start doing music, you do it because you love it,” she explains. “I hadn’t considered the other aspects — touring is fun but intensive; social media, I hate it; pressures and politics… it’s a lot more than I thought.”
Music remains her outlet, even when it causes the stress. Her prolific writing reflects this — Altar was written before Madra even came out, and in between she released her solo debut Bottom of the Pool. These songs, especially those on Altar, have helped her understand herself better. “I can be bad at standing up for myself, but you really need to do that in music — otherwise people will take the piss. I realised that through songwriting.”
On ‘Entertainer’, she confronts her people-pleasing tendencies; on ‘Heavyweight’, the expectations placed on female musicians. ‘Roobosh’, driven by a rumbling bassline and explosive vocal yells, dives into the pressures placed on women to be patient, understanding, “nice all the time”. “I wanted one song where I just went, ‘Fuck you, fuck this,’” Dawson says. “I wanted a whinge — something completely off-kilter.”
For NewDad’s second album, the band enlisted rising producer Shrink (Sam Breathwick), as well as longtime collaborator Justin Parker. Their relationship with Shrink began during the writing sessions for ‘Entertainer’ and ‘Safe’, the title track of the band’s 2025 EP. “These songs we spent two days writing sounded perfect, so I was like, ‘I want to see what else we can do.’”
The result is a record as beautiful as it is crunchy and in-your-face — deftly shifting between sparkling delicacy and heavy blasts of guitar and bass. It leans further into pop, drawing from Dawson’s love of bright-toned rock bands like R.E.M. and The Sundays.
This expanded sound will define NewDad’s new live show — an already acclaimed setup that has earned them slots at every major UK festival, support tours with Pixies, Fontaines D.C., and The War On Drugs, and tours as far as Japan and China. “Our biggest headline show was in Shanghai and the whole crowd were singing ‘White Ribbons’,” Dawson recalls. “I burst into tears… it didn’t feel real.”
The next touring phase — spanning China, Japan, North America, Europe, and the UK — will see Shrink join the band onstage, making the songs “much more full”. “It’s a big step up,” Dawson says. “The songs we struggled to get across live — we have that now.”
Fittingly, given Altar’s devotion to home, the continued ascent of NewDad will further Ireland’s position as a global creative force. They are bringing something fresh to the new wave of formidable young Irish acts, distinct from their peers while rising alongside them.
Dawson hopes Altar gives listeners courage — to stand up for themselves, to feel proud, to find strength. “Nothing’s perfect,” she reflects, “but if you work hard and stay true to yourself, it’ll be alright.” Sacrifices may still be part of life’s balancing act, but Altar has helped her accept that — and will propel NewDad to even greater heights.
