The Haunted Youth are done playing nice — new single ‘wake up’ signals a rawer chapter

Fresh off sold-out shows in London, Paris, and Amsterdam, The Haunted Youth are keeping the momentum going with wake up, the latest single lifted from their forthcoming album ‘Boys Cry Too’, due out May 8th, 2026 via Play It Again Sam.

If you were expecting more of the delicate bedroom-pop shimmer that made their debut ‘Dawn Of The Freak’ such a cult favourite, think again. wake up is the most stripped-back thing The Haunted Youth have put out yet — acoustic guitar front and centre, hushed vocals carrying a whole lot of warmth and weight, before the whole thing unfurls into lush, layered shoegaze. It’s beautiful and it stings a little. Exactly how it should be.

Kicking In Doors

On ‘Boys Cry Too’, frontman Joachim Liebens doesn’t so much evolve as detonate. Where ‘Dawn Of The Freak’ trafficked in fragile, childlike textures, the new record charges in with something far more confrontational — distortion rubbing up against intimacy, fragile melodies sitting right next to genuine aggression. The album opens with the towering eight-minute in my head and closes on the haunting ghost girl, and there’s barely a moment in between where Liebens isn’t pushing harder than before.

“I was a kid on ‘Dawn Of The Freak’,” he reflects. “It sounds almost like nursery rhymes to me — everything is so fragile and childlike, like a cry for attention.” Then, with what we can only imagine is a very satisfying grin: “And now I’m angsty and kicking in doors.“

That energy is all over the record. murder me goes full goth-grunge thrash. The instrumental falling to pieces is described as ground-zero annihilation. And then there’s the New Order-ish propulsion of i hear voices, which hits like a shot of dopamine. The shadowy castlevania, meanwhile, is Liebens’ own “perfect triangle of Nirvana, Alice In Chains and My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’.” That’s a bold claim. It also sounds exactly right.

The Vulnerable Side of the Noise

For all its squall and fury, ‘Boys Cry Too’ has a deeply emotional throughline baked right into its title. Liebens describes the album as a two-act emotional arc: the first half is all walls up, paranoia, aggression — the face boys show the world when they’re hurting. The second half tears that down completely.

“I want to show the vulnerable part of men and boys and celebrate it instead of making it this whole stigma that’s been going on for so long,” he says. It’s a statement of intent as much as a record — and one that feels genuinely earned rather than just a talking point.

Sonically, the shift from ‘Dawn Of The Freak’ is marked: live drums and guitar take center stage this time around, trading the earlier album’s sun-bleached synth layers for something more raw and physical. And in a fun twist, Liebens says his biggest reference points during the writing process weren’t rock acts at all — he was deep in hip-hop, with emo-rap outlier Lil Peep cited as a key influence on how he approached lyrics. Less resolution, more gut-punch. It shows.

‘Boys Cry Too’ — Tracklist

1. in my head
2. castlevania
3. deathwish
4. emo song
5. wake up
6. hurt
7. murder me
8. falling to pieces
9. i hear voices
10. forget me
11. ghost girl

‘Boys Cry Too’ is out May 8th, 2026 via Play It Again Sam. Stream wake up now and brace yourself.

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