New Zealand indie rock icons The Bats have announced their 11th full-length album, Corner Coming Up, due out October 17th via Flying Nun Records.
Corner Coming Up was recorded at Chicks Studio in Port Chalmers with Flying Nun legend Tex Houston, their longtime collaborator. It will be available digitally and on peach or black vinyl and CD.
Alongside the album news, The Bats have dropped a brand new single, “Lucky Day”, with an accompanying lo-fi, psychedelic video directed by Marc Swadel.
Shot on the go across Florence, London, Tokyo, Doha, Taipei, Liverpool, Zagreb, Manchester, Hong Kong, and Christchurch, the video mixes band-shot footage with clips from Swadel and crew’s travels.
This is Swadel’s fourth video with The Bats. He’s also worked with Crowded House, Thurston Moore, Sparks, Liam Finn, and The Chemical Brothers.
“When I heard the name of the song, I thought – lucky cat!” says Swadel. “The Japanese name for this creature is Maneki-Neko – and in their folklore the Bat is a sign of good luck – the Bakeneko – so it felt like a random but fun idea, to take a cat along on work and shoot as we go.”
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“Lucky Day” follows the recent single “Loline“, The Bats’ first new music since 2020’s acclaimed Foothills, and signals that the band have well and truly delivered on their promise of “album number 11 in the pipeline.”
Since forming in Christchurch in 1982, Robert Scott, Kaye Woodward, Paul Kean, and Malcolm Grant have built one of New Zealand’s most beloved indie legacies with their warm, jangly guitar pop and DIY spirit.
Corner Coming Up promises that classic sound fans have loved for over 40 years. Timeless, catchy, and true.
Catch The Bats this November at The Others Way 2025 on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, alongside Tiny Ruins, Holly Arrowsmith, The Phoenix Foundation, and more.
The Bats’ “Lucky Day” is out now via Flying Nun Records.
