Kodaline close the studio with We Were Only Young

Steve Garrigan wrote every song on the twelve-track set, a long look back over more than a decade; the band still have farewell gigs across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK.

Kodaline have released We Were Only Young, their fifth and final studio album, through Concord Records. The twelve-track record is out today as the Irish band from Swords continue their Farewell World Tour, with dates remaining across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK.

Steve Garrigan wrote every song. The album opens with Who Will Save You Now and ends on The One For Me. In between sit reflections on love, loss, friendship, nostalgia, growing older and closure — the themes placed at the centre of this last studio statement. Standout cuts include the title track, Vultures, Without You and Learn To Lose.

Vultures was released in early September as a buoyant, folk-tinged single. Without You is a tender acoustic ballad Garrigan wrote for his wife on their wedding day. Learn To Lose is piano-led. Together with the title song, they give the set its emotional range, from lift to quiet address.

A decade brought into focus

The band have called the project a long zoom out on more than a decade of poignant indie pop. That framing sits against the six-year gap since One Day at a Time in 2020. We Were Only Young is not a mid-career detour; it is the closing chapter they have chosen to write in full, with Garrigan carrying the songwriting alone and the tracklist shaped as a single arc from first song to last.

Calling a record final changes how it lands. Listeners hear the nostalgia and the talk of growing older, aware the studio door is meant to shut behind it. Friendship and loss take on the weight of a goodbye even when the songs themselves remain in the indie-pop register the group have worked in throughout their run. The craft is in the sequencing as much as the writing: a bold open, a folk-tinged single still fresh from September, an acoustic wedding piece, a piano ballad, and a close that resolves rather than leaves the door ajar.

For a band that have spent more than ten years in that lane, the decision to name this the final studio album is the point of the release. The songs do not abandon the sound that built the catalogue; they gather it, look back across it, and set it down. That is what a long zoom out is for — not a break with the past, but a clear frame around it.

Tour dates still ahead

The farewell is not only on disc. The Farewell World Tour continues, with dates remaining across Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. Stage and studio are being wound down on different clocks: the album is the last full studio work; the gigs keep the catalogue and these new songs in front of audiences for a while longer.

One practical hitch affects physical buyers in the United States. Vinyl editions there are delayed by a week and will arrive on 9 October. Other formats and other territories follow today's date without change.

Nothing further has been set out beyond the remaining tour dates and that staggered vinyl release. For now the story is simple and finite: the final studio album is here, the songs are Garrigan's from end to end, and the road still has miles on it before the live farewell is done.

We Were Only Young is out now on Concord Records.

Tour dates

Kodaline will tour Ireland and the UK in December. Tickets are on sale now.

Kodaline's upcoming Irish and UK dates are:

DECEMBER 2026

12 – London, Roundhouse
14 – Glasgow, O2 Academy
15 – Manchester, Albert Hall
16 – London, O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
18 – Dublin, 3Arena