Silent Running stoke the fire for album six

‘Back Into The Fire’ arrived on 9 October and is the first Silent Running release to feature Stevie Prosser on keyboards; the band play Voodoo in Belfast on 6 November.

Silent Running have released ‘Back Into The Fire’, a new single that arrived on 9 October 2026 as the first taste of their forthcoming sixth studio album. The Belfast band keep the widescreen, atmospheric sound that has marked their records and set it against a more direct, driving rock feel. It is also their first release to feature Stevie Prosser on keyboards.

Singer Peter Gamble said there is “a real energy and positivity” to the song and that it felt like the right track to introduce the new album. No title, tracklist or release date for that sixth studio set has been announced with the single; ‘Back Into The Fire’ stands as the opening statement.

Belfast beginnings and the Atlantic years

Silent Running formed in Belfast in the early 1980s as a five-piece rock band from Northern Ireland. They signed with EMI in 1983 and issued their debut album Shades Of Liberty in 1984. A move to Atlantic followed — they were the first Irish band to sign with that label — and brought Walk On Fire in 1987 and Deep in 1989. After Deep, the group folded. The gap lasted three decades.

That first run left a clear shape: three studio albums across the second half of the 1980s, major-label backing on both sides of the Atlantic, and a sound built for scale. When the band went quiet after 1989, the catalogue remained a record of that era rather than a working concern.

The long return

The band reformed in 2019. The return was gradual rather than an immediate leap back into a full album cycle. It began with the single ‘Lost Boy’ in 2019, then ‘Live Right Now’ and the live album Live in Voodoo, Belfast in 2020. Studio work resumed in earnest with the single ‘Beyond Your Wildest Dreams’ and the album Follow The Light in 2022 — their first new studio album since Deep. Further singles followed: ‘Faith Healer’ and ‘Walking Wounded’ in 2023, then ‘Hit and Run’ in 2025 ahead of the album NORTHSTAR the same year.

That sequence places ‘Back Into The Fire’ as the next step after NORTHSTAR and positions the sixth studio album as the next full statement after five studio records spread across more than forty years of intermittent activity. The post-reunion run has been steadier than the long silence that preceded it: singles, a live document from their home city, and two studio albums in three years before this new lead track.

The five on the record

The current line-up is Peter Gamble on vocals and rhythm guitar, Tony Scott on lead guitar and backing vocals, Richard Collett on bass and backing vocals, Gary Kirby on drums and backing vocals, and Stevie Prosser on keyboards. Prosser’s presence on ‘Back Into The Fire’ is the first time he has appeared on a Silent Running release, and it is the detail the band have tied most clearly to the sound of the new material.

Silent Running will play Voodoo in Belfast on 6 November 2026. The venue already features in their recent story through the 2020 live album recorded there; the November date brings the new single back to the same room while the sixth album remains unannounced in full. For now the facts the band have put on the table are: a lead single with a stated energy, a keyboard player newly on the record, and a home gig weeks away while the rest of the album cycle is still to come.