Brighton folk band Bird in the Belly release their fourth album on 30 October

Brighton folk group Bird in the Belly^2,3 release their fourth album, Only Dogs as Friends, on 30 October 2026. It is on GF*M Records, distributed by Code 7 Music, which is taking pre-orders now. The release was first reported by the Argus¹.

The band is four people: Laura Ward and Adam Ronchetti, who also play as the duo Hickory Signals, singer-songwriter Ben Webb, who records as Jinnwoo, and multi-instrumentalist and producer Tom Pryor. They dig up little-known lyrics, poems and stories from around the UK and write their own music for them. The Argus calls the style their signature “folk noir”.

The new record was made at Studio 95 in Brighton. It mixes original lyrics with versions of historic poems and broadside ballads, and its cast includes con artists and people who were misjudged.

“We wanted to focus on the stories of outsiders – people who have been feared or were fearful,” Webb told the Argus. “As always, we tried to find overlooked stories and songs and this album is very character driven.”

It follows The Crowing in 2018, Neighbours and Sisters in 2019 and After the City in 2022. One of their older songs has a local title: the illustrator Chris Riddell picked Horace in Brighton as one of his tracks on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in March 2020.