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The profile · researched 3 November 2026
Twelve years out of Malmö, and album five finally in view
Liar Thief Bandit have turned a Malmö side project into one of Sweden's most dependable touring rock trios. With the single "Upwind" out since August 2026 and a nine-date German run this month, the follow-up to 2024's Icon is close.
A side project, a Gluecifer lyric and a name
The band that now tours as Liar Thief Bandit did not begin as a band at all. Around 2013 it was a solo vehicle for bassist Felix Illi, with William Grube playing drums. Mike Jacobson came in on guitar and vocals, and it was Jacobson who pushed in 2014 for the thing to become a proper group with a proper name. The trio dates its founding to late 2014 in Malmö, and started putting out demos and playing shows the following year.
The name comes from a line in Gluecifer's "Take It", and the three members divided it up between them — Jacobson the liar, Grube the thief, Illi the bandit. Illi left after the band's first European tour in 2017 and Niklas Dahre took over on bass and backing vocals, completing the line-up that has held ever since.
Jacobson has described a listening diet that explains the width of the material more than any single scene would: Metallica, Nirvana and Iron Maiden alongside The Hellacopters, Kiss, The Stooges and The Damned, plus the skate-punk of Millencolin and The Offspring. The label copy that goes out with their records reaches for MC5, Danko Jones and Rival Sons. What all of it has in common is tempo.
Four albums, mostly paid for the hard way
The debut, Gun Shovel Alibi, arrived in 2016 and was self-produced. Straight Ahead followed in August 2018, by which point the band was touring hard enough that the records began to read as documents of a working group rather than studio projects.
Deadlights, released on 14 May 2021 through The Sign Records, was the first to get broad press attention. Twelve tracks across roughly 41 minutes, cut at Tambourine Studios in Malmö and pressed in limited blue and transparent red vinyl, it ran from "Limitations" and "Catch & Release" through "Feather" to "Hindsight". A review published on 23 May 2021 called it excellently produced and well played, and credited the band with keeping garage rock, classic hard rock and punk in the same frame without the album flattening out.
The 2022 mini-album Diamonds, trailed by the singles "Diamonds (Are Made Under Pressure)" and "Peace With Disaster", kept them in circulation between full-lengths and did enough to get them onto bigger Swedish stages.
Icon
The fourth album was recorded in the autumn of 2023 at Studio Sickan in Malmö, produced and mixed by Joakim Lindberg. Three singles went out ahead of it: "Death Pioneer" on 23 February 2024, "Retaliation" in March, and "It All Goes Away In The End" on 26 April. Of "Death Pioneer", the band said it was about preserving a legacy and paid tribute to a figure they considered an instigator of contemporary rock music.
Icon itself was released on 24 May 2024 on The Sign Records, on black and transparent orange vinyl and digitally, with a CD edition following in early 2025. Eleven tracks: "The Ultimate Sign", "Death Pioneer", "Dying Efforts", "Recoil", "Traces Of Use", "Can't Slow Me Down", "Residence Sorrow" and the closing title track among them.
Distorted Sound gave it 8/10 on 22 May 2024, describing a mix of grunge-leaning rock, arena-scaled power-rock and 1970s influence, cohesive and well paced, with a middle stretch that felt less developed than the rest and a title track that pulled the record together at the end. The same review pointed at the band's work ethic rather than any breakthrough moment — by then they had passed 200 shows.
The touring record
The live count is the spine of the band's reputation. They have played more than 200 shows across mainland Europe, the UK and Spain, and marked their hundredth in Hamburg in May 2019 at the start of an eighteen-day European run.
Support slots have put them in front of other people's audiences repeatedly: The Bronx, Supersuckers, Hank von Hell, Electric Six, Valiant Thorr, Royal Republic, The Hellacopters and Graveyard. The step up in Sweden came with Sweden Rock Festival in 2023.
Setlist.fm has them logged mainly at home — 31 documented Swedish shows against three each in Germany and Denmark, with single entries in Belgium, Spain and France. Kulturbolaget in Malmö has hosted them four times, Rock Stage in Malmö and Folkets Park in Knislinge three each.
2026: Upwind, Knislinge, and nine nights in Germany
The first new music since Icon appeared on 14 August 2026 as the single "Upwind", billed in venue listings as the lead track from a new album. No release date for that record has been announced publicly.
Between the single and the album came the festival work. Liar Thief Bandit played the Pirate Rock Stage at Time To Rock Festival in Knislinge Folkets Park on Sunday 5 July 2026, early in the afternoon of the final day of a 3–6 July event headlined by Magnum, Gotthard, Loudness and Erik Grönwall. A Swiss review of the weekend singled out Jacobson's bright vocal tone and the swing the trio got into their 1970s-facing material, called the sound bigger than the stage, and noted Dahre losing his cap to his own movement. Earlier in the year they had worked Swedish rooms, including Backstage Rockbar in Trollhättan on 7 March. Their most recently documented show before this run was at Medley in Malmö on 31 October 2026.
The current German tour runs 20–28 November 2026: Kaiserwerke in Gera, Cadillac in Oldenburg, Rockpool in Halle, Kulturpalast Linden in Hannover, Ponyhof in Frankfurt, Break Out in Asendorf, Stellwerk in Hamburg, Tante Anna in Saarbrücken and Kulturrampe in Krefeld. The Oldenburg show starts at 20:30 and is billed with fellow Swedes Saturday's Heroes, with local band DUCS opening; tickets were listed at €20 plus fees by the venue and from €23 on resale platforms, with Frankfurt around €25. Beyond that, Brygg Lab in Oslo is confirmed for 15 May 2027.
The show, now
A Liar Thief Bandit show in late 2026 is a three-piece playing fast in a small room, with no production to speak of. The most recent documented set, at Medley in Malmö on 31 October 2026, ran eleven songs inside a 45-minute slot from 20:15 to 21:00, opening with "Deadlights" and finishing on "Good Enough". Headline club nights stretch further — Jacobson has described a European run built on a thirteen-song set plus encores — and recent setlists lean on "Death Pioneer", "Recoil" and "Residence Sorrow" from Icon as fixed points, with the new single "Upwind" the obvious addition for the November 2026 dates. The German tour that starts on 20 November plays rooms of club size: Ponyhof in Frankfurt, Stellwerk in Hamburg, Tante Anna in Saarbrücken, Kulturrampe in Krefeld. The Oldenburg show on 21 November is a double Swedish bill with Saturday's Heroes and a local opener, DUCS, doors to a 20:30 start, around €20 plus fees. Reviewers who have seen them recently describe the same two things: a volume and sound larger than the stage they are standing on, and physical movement that costs the bassist his hat. Jacobson's own account of a good night is less about spectacle than synchronisation — the band and the room arriving at the same energy at the same time.
Researched from doomed-nation.com · distortedsoundmag.com · inthebucketplaylist.com · ballroomblitzsmanattheback.com · maximumvolumemusic.com · music.apple.com · songkick.com · oldenburg-tourismus.de