Today, Glasgow/London duo Sacred Paws return to the fold after a five-year hiatus, announcing their new album Jump Into Life out March 28, 2025. The news is accompanied by a Becky Manson–directed video for lead single “Turn Me Down." Listen to “Turn Me Down” wherever you stream music, and pre-order Jump Into Life on CD and LP from the Merge store.

“Turn Me Down” further explores the thematic thread introduced by last year’s “Another Day,” finding the duo resolving to stay positive in the face of heartbreak. It’s a song the band’s Ray Aggs and Eilidh Rodgers say is about “the rawness of rejection,” where the refrain “Do you even feel the pain?” is juxtaposed against jubilant handclaps and guitars that burst with vitality. Sonically, the track ripples with the unyielding spirit of their recognizable African and roots influences, with the vocal harmonies lending the track a world-weary edge that allows the whole thing to linger long after the song is over.

Sacred Paws on “Turn Me Down”:

It’s something I reckon everyone feels at some point in their life—those moments when however irrational it might seem to feel so deeply, the feeling is still there. It felt cathartic to write a song about it with quite dramatic rhythms and a big vocal melody. We really loved working on the vocal melodies for this song. The harmonies took a while to figure out as it’s not something we have done a lot in the past, but the singing added something really epic. The lyrics are so simple and raw that it really needed to pack a punch as a song.

The intricately layered track is yet more proof that the prospect of new Sacred Paws music was worth the wait, as Aggs and Rodgers’ patience through their unintended hiatus yielded a lightning bolt of inspiration. Sparked by relocating from Eilidh’s flat to Mogwai’s practice room, the duo developed Jump Into Life as the world around them opened up again, the music pouring out from crackling car speakers into the wider city as they drove to and from the studio. The resulting album is imbued with a wide-eyed, thrilling sense of abandon.

The duo on Jump Into Life: “It’s definitely a Sacred Paws record, but it feels a bit older and wiser. We took a few years working on the songwriting and pushed ourselves creatively. We wrote a lot in that time, but we made sure every song had something that we fell in love with.”