Johnny Foreigner

Forwards! is a collection of songs by Johnny Foreigner about their hometown and how they really feel about it. For almost twenty years, the Birmingham indie-rock four-piece have occupied a unique corner of UK alternative music, and now return with what they are calling a “Small Collection of Songs,” due September 4, 2026 via Alcopop! Records.

The record includes 10 full-length tracks: “6 actual songs,” each named from prominent bits of Birmingham media, and “4 cursed field recordings.” It moves roughly chronologically through moments in Brummie history, from the Lunar Society and Priestley Riots, through post-war brutalist redevelopment, to the current era of apathy, strikes, mystery fires, and grifters stoking dangerously misguided patriotism.

The album grew from the band's view of the city as both a microcosm of the wider country and a testing ground for 200 years of unaccountable Westminster experimentation. The title itself is taken from Birmingham’s often-derided civic motto.

Throughout the record, fellow Birmingham punx Luxury Nan Smell take the role of The City Elders, providing backing vocals that interrupt, question, or comment on the songs like a running director’s commentary. Bryn Bowen, whose CV stretches across numerous Birmingham bands of the 2000s, appears as The Lords of Change, a recurring voice embodying the landlords, lawmakers, and civic powerbrokers who shape the city from above.

Forwards! is available to pre-order through Alcopop! Records on strictly limited “industrial smoke vinyl” limited to 500 copies, never to be pressed again in that colour, and CD. Pre-orders dispatch on or around September 4, 2026.