NOVULENT

Dallas, by way of Zimbabwe

Novulent was conceived in Zimbabwe and born in Dallas to Zimbabwean immigrant parents. Rock music was not allowed in the house; the artist's father was deeply religious and died suddenly when Novulent was 13. The first breach came earlier than that, at nine, hearing Deftones' "Change (In the House of Flies)". The path from there to a specific genre ran through Whirr's 2019 record Feels Like You, which Novulent has named as the discovery that pointed towards shoegaze, and Whirr as a favourite band.

The actual making of music started at 17, which in practical terms meant an iPhone 6 and the free BandLab app, worked around a 6 a.m. shift at a petrol station. The first DIY single, "M.I.A.", came out in 2022. Novulent, who uses they/them pronouns, has described the approach that followed in terms of texture rather than songwriting: "I see my voice as not necessarily just a voice, but as an instrument." Anyone who has heard the records will recognise that as a literal description of the mix, where the vocal sits inside the guitars rather than on top of them.

Four albums before anyone was paying

Before any label was involved, Novulent put out dozens of shorts and EPs and four albums independently — My Story 1, My Story 2, VOL. 1 and VOL. 2. The Bandcamp page still carries VOL.1, VOL.2 and Untold Story, with the bio reduced to a single line: "a fallen angel the emotional odyssey". It is a volume of work that would be unusual for an artist of any age and is genuinely strange for someone who had only started at 17.

The break came from outside music entirely. The song "scars" appeared in a post from Megan Thee Stallion's trip to Japan, and the numbers moved from there. By late September 2025, "scars" had passed 162 million Spotify streams. Novulent's own framing of that, speaking before a Tampa show at Crowbar on 1 October 2025, put the streaming counter in its place: "Interacting with my fans... that, to me, is far more satisfying than keeping track of the number of streams I have."

The business caught up in autumn 2024. WME signed Novulent on 18 September 2024 — still 19 at the time — with Jordan Stone, Kidder Erdman, Justin Edwards and Tor Breon handling touring, and AFTERLIFE on management. Capitol Records signed the artist around the same period, roughly a year before that Tampa date.

VOL. 3, and the point of a trilogy

VOL. 3 arrived in February 2026 on Capitol and closed the trilogy at 13 tracks. Novulent has been consistent in describing it as a single narrative rather than a collection: "Listening from track one to thirteen, it's like each song is its own chapter perfectly transitioning from one to the next." The sequence opens with "peering thoughts", turns at "sweet revenge" and ends on "the world ends with you", with "new low", "fix you", "molly and sex" and "evil eye" in between. The stated subject is love, taken "piece by piece" through the emotional journey it causes.

What separates VOL. 3 from the earlier volumes, by the artist's own account, is not the subject matter but the response to it. "The main difference would have to be my reactions to the situations," Novulent said in April 2026. "I started making music around when I was 17, and the mentality I had at 17 is way different from my mentality now at 21." That reads on the record as less shouting and more arrangement — recurring piano figures placed deliberately against the guitar washes.

Reception has treated it as a step up in craft rather than a reinvention. A February 2026 review characterised the album as reverberant vocals and electric-guitar soundscapes assembled into something that plays like an angsty coming-of-age film, calling it raw and unapologetic while noting that the storytelling-album structure is itself familiar territory; the distinctive part, in that reading, is the sonic execution rather than the concept. "Sacrifice" was singled out. Novulent's own complaint is that first-time listeners miss the structure entirely and hear a batch of singles.

The influence list the artist gives is less shoegaze-canonical than the sound suggests: 2hollis, mehro, Trippie Redd, quannnic and Wisp, alongside the 1990s material.

A solo project with a borrowed rhythm section

Novulent began as one person and had to be converted into a band to tour. By the time of the WME signing the live unit had Drew on bass, Nico on lead guitar and Max on drums. As of the autumn 2025 run, the drummer, bassist and guitarist on stage were three members of the Baltimore band The Missing Peace — a practical solution to the problem of an artist whose records were made alone needing four people on a stage.

The 2025 headline run was 13 cities, opening on 30 September in Miami. It was the first real test of whether bedroom recordings built around a voice-as-texture would survive being played loudly by other people in small rooms.

Where it stands in November 2026

VOL.3 THE FINAL ALBUM TOUR ran from 11 June 2026 in El Paso to 8 August in Houston, taking in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Chicago, with Babyteeth opening on selected dates. Festival slots followed: a 25-minute set on the Janis Stage at The Far Out Lounge for Levitation in Austin on 12 September 2026, three songs long.

The current block is the busiest stretch yet and the first to leave North America. Boise's Treefort Music Hall on 22 November 2026, with Clarion opening, is followed by ten days across Europe: Backstage Club in Munich on 30 November, Bike Jesus in Prague on 1 December, Klub MECHanik in Warsaw on 2 December, Urban Spree in Berlin on 3 December, Patronaat in Haarlem on 5 December, Luxor in Cologne on 7 December, Les Etoiles in Paris on 8 December, The Deaf Institute in Manchester on 10 December and Downstairs at the Dome in London on 11 December. These are club-sized rooms, not the venues the streaming figures would imply.

The run comes home to Dallas on 19 December 2026 for Novmas Fest at AM/FM, 1950 Market Center Blvd — a nine-hour bill running from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning, with Max Fry, Lorraine, Forest, Harsh Intention, Yearn and Sonia is Dead on the lineup and tickets priced between nothing and $45. Beyond that, the next confirmed date is a considerably larger one: the Boeing Center at Tech Port in San Antonio on 13 April 2027, with Panchiko and Clarion.

The trajectory is unusually compressed. Four self-released albums, a viral song, a major label and an agency inside about four years, and a trilogy closed at 21 — which leaves the open question of what a project named after its own volume numbers does once the volumes have run out.