The Velvet Hands

Truro, Newquay, and the move up the line

The Velvet Hands came out of the garage-rock circuit in Cornwall, a scene built on small rooms in Truro and Newquay rather than on anything an industry scout was likely to stumble into. The core has stayed constant: Toby Mitchell on vocals and guitar, Dan Able on vocals and guitar, Louis Mitchell on drums. The bass chair has been the one point of movement — press materials for the 2025 EP name John Logan, while the band that played Brighton in August 2024 had Sam Hilder on bass.

Like most acts from that far west, they eventually relocated to London, because the gigs and the guitar-circuit ecosystem are there and the drive from Cornwall to anywhere is five hours. The support slots that followed are the clearest evidence of where they were placed: Liam Gallagher, Frank Turner, Paul Weller, Fontaines D.C., and Hard-Fi's Roundhouse show. Festivals have leaned toward the ones that know them locally and the ones that take a punt on new guitar bands — Boardmasters, on their own coast, and Truck.

Their press file is built from the kind of quotes a band accumulates over years of playing rather than one breakout moment. NME called them "full of bolshy spirit". Dork went with "a satisfying mix of classic punk, rock'n'roll and modern indie magic". John Kennedy, who has championed them on Radio X, put it more bluntly: "Every track they've released has been a hit as far as I'm concerned." GodsinTheTV placed them "somewhere between the attitude of early Cribs or Libertines colliding with the death or glory of the Clash", which is a fair description of the noise they were making at that point.

'Party's Over', and the five years that followed it

The debut album, 'Party's Over', arrived in 2018. It did what a first record by a band of that kind is meant to do — it captured them loud, fast and unfussy — and its title track is still the song they use to close a set eight years later, which tells its own story about how much of their identity was fixed early.

Then came a gap of five years with no second album in it. Whatever the internal reasons, the effect is visible in the shape of their career: they spent the back half of the 2010s and the pandemic years as a live act with one record, which is a difficult position to hold. The reason it matters now is that the same pattern is recurring — 2026 opened with an album promised and, as of late September, still unreleased.

'Sucker Punch': the reset

The second album, 'Sucker Punch', landed in 2023 and was their first LP since 'Party's Over'. It broadened the palette without abandoning the speed: reviewers heard punk, glam and indie in it and reached for The Strokes and Parquet Courts on the guitar figures, The Clash and The Vaccines on the choruses. Thematically it was described as a record about frustration, anxiety and finding some optimism in modern life — territory a lot of British guitar bands were working in that year, handled here without much self-pity.

It was also the first release they properly worked. On 5 September 2023 they announced a November UK headline tour alongside a new single, 'Meet Me in the City', and an expanded edition of the album. That pattern — release, extend, tour it again — is how the record stayed in circulation long enough to matter, and by 2024 the live set was drawing most of its material from it.

'Sucker Punch' remains the record that defines them to anyone who has arrived since. It is the one Louder Than War was describing when it called the follow-up "another fab album from The Velvet Hands", and the one that the current live set is still substantially built on.

'Caller', AWAL, and a spring on the festival circuit

The 'Caller' EP is the most recent release. Physical editions — CD, cassette and 10-inch vinyl — went on sale on 22 March 2025, timed to a headline show at Dingwalls in London that night; the digital release followed on 1 May 2025 through AWAL. The lead single, 'I Don't Care', was announced on 23 March 2025.

Four tracks made the digital version: 'I Don't Care', 'I'll Be Free', the title track and '3AM'. Physical buyers got a fifth, a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's 'Chick Habit', which the band had already been playing live. Jam X Jules produced and mixed the record with the band. Reviewers picked up on a shift in the guitar writing — indie-disco hooks under the post-punk riffing on 'I Don't Care', a Strokes lean on 'I'll Be Free', and reference points that ranged wider than before, to The Jam, Elvis Costello and Hot Hot Heat.

The EP was released into a full spring: Stockton Calling, The Great Escape in Brighton on 17 May 2025, Run For The Sun in Newquay on 23 May, and The Great Estate at Scorrier on 30 May. Playing two Cornish festivals in eight days is a deliberate choice, and it is the clearest sign that the home audience is still the base rather than a nostalgia stop.

Autumn 2026: the biggest room done, the album outstanding

The measurable step up came on Saturday 28 March 2026, when This Feeling put them on at The Dome in Tufnell Park — 600 capacity, their largest headline to date, with support from Emerson and Star Print Clad. The venue's own listing framed it accurately: an EP in March 2025, further material expected later that year, and a full album planned for 2026. They had sold out Omeara in London before it.

The Dome was followed by a short run — Patterns in Brighton on 9 April 2026, and Bridlington Spa on 18 April. The diary since then has been thin, which is consistent with a band in the studio rather than one that has stalled. Two dates are currently listed ahead: Jamboree Jazz Club in Barcelona on 15 October 2026, and 229 in London on 19 December 2026, the latter the one with tickets moving.

The honest read on their standing as of late September 2026 is that the live side has done its job and the recorded side has not caught up. They have the biggest headline of their career behind them, a Spanish date on the sheet and a London show to close the year — but the third album that The Dome's listing promised for 2026 has not appeared, and no release date for it has been made public. The Barcelona and December London shows are the obvious places for new material to be aired first.