Matty Healy Says The 1975’s New Album Is ‘Almost Done’

The 1975’s next chapter finally appears to be getting close.

Matty Healy has offered one of the clearest updates yet on the band’s long-awaited sixth album, telling fans that the record is now “almost done” after previously revealing that The 1975 had been working on enough material for potentially two albums.

The update arrived in a video shown during a Sunday for Sammy fundraiser at Salt Market Social in North Shields on Friday night, September 25. The event was headlined by The 9075, the tribute band who have developed a close relationship with the charity and were also invited to perform at Healy’s stag celebrations in Malibu earlier this year. Sunday for Sammy supports emerging performers and creatives across the North East, with Healy serving as a patron of the charity.

Healy initially joked that he was “never going to finish it” before quickly giving fans the considerably more encouraging update: “It’s almost done.”

It is only a few words, but after several years of teasing, studio updates and cryptic references to ‘DOGS’, they feel significant.

What do we know about The 1975’s next album?

The road towards album six stretches back well before this latest update.

Ahead of The 1975’s Glastonbury headline appearance in June 2025, manager and Dirty Hit founder Jamie Oborne confirmed that the band were making a new record. He described the material as “pretty extraordinary” but was deliberately vague about when anybody might actually hear it, adding that the band had earned the right to take their time over what came next.

That Glastonbury show then ended with the first major clue about the identity of the new era.

After The 1975 finished their Pyramid Stage headline set, the word DOGS appeared across the screens. It had also been visible on George Daniel’s drum kit during the performance, immediately prompting speculation that it might be the title of whatever the band were making next.

I wrote about that night at the time in The 1975: From the Internet, when ‘DOGS’ still felt like one final cryptic message at the end of one of the biggest performances of their career.

By December, it was considerably less cryptic. During a visit to Gateshead College connected to Sunday for Sammy, Healy took part in a songwriting session and Q&A with students. Asked about ‘DOGS’, he confirmed that it was connected to an album before revealing that The 1975 had actually made two records' worth of material. Whether those eventually emerge as two separate albums remains less clear.

That uncertainty feels quite appropriate for The 1975. Even when the band tell you what they are doing, they often manage to create three more questions in the process.

The 1975 have been living in the studio

There have been other signs throughout 2026 that work on the record has continued. In February, Healy told fans that he had effectively been living in the studio and barely sleeping, describing it as something that tends to happen during intense periods of album-making. By that stage, references to ‘DOGS’ and the possibility of two records had already been hanging over the band for several months

Friday's update is therefore different from another vague “we're working on it” comment. Saying the album is almost finished suggests that whatever shape the next era eventually takes, The 1975 are much closer to letting everybody else hear it.

There is still plenty we do not know.No release date has been announced in the material made public so far, and it remains unclear whether ‘DOGS’ will definitely be the title of the sixth album, one of two albums, or part of a wider project. Healy's own comments have kept that deliberately open.

What seems considerably clearer is that there is a substantial amount of new music.

Four years on from ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’

Whenever the record arrives, it will follow 2022’s ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’, which remains The 1975’s most recent studio album and marked one of the most focused periods of their career. The band's official website still centres that record as their current studio release.

You can read my full review of The 1975’s ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’ here.

That album stripped away much of the sprawl of ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ without making The 1975 sound smaller. Songs such as ‘Happiness’, ‘Oh Caroline’, ‘About You’ and ‘Looking for Somebody (To Love)’ gave the band some of their most direct songwriting while still leaving room for the self-awareness, contradictions and constant questioning that have followed them throughout their career.

Four years later, the interesting question is not simply whether The 1975 can make another great album. It is what version of the band will make it.

Their Glastonbury performance deliberately looked backwards across the catalogue, but the appearance of ‘DOGS’ at the very end suggested that nostalgia was never intended to be the final word. The band had spent the evening reminding the Pyramid Stage how many songs they already had. Then, just before disappearing, they hinted that the next thing was already waiting.

So, when will we hear it?

For now, that remains the question. There are currently no upcoming shows listed on The 1975’s official tour page, and nothing in the sources reviewed gives the sixth album a confirmed release date.

But “almost done” is considerably closer than where we were a year ago.

First there was the “pretty extraordinary” record. Then came ‘DOGS’. Then came the revelation that they had made two albums. Earlier this year, Healy was living in the studio. Now, finally, he says they are approaching the end.

With The 1975, there is always the possibility that finishing an album simply gives Matty Healy an opportunity to start changing it again. But album six, whatever it ultimately ends up being called, suddenly feels a lot more real.