Peter Hammill Announces First New Album in Five Years, Tears In Time

Peter Hammill Announces First New Album in Five Years, Tears In Time

​Release date:
25 September 2026

Peter Hammill, the founding member and unmistakable voice of the legendary Van der Graaf Generator, returns with Tears In Time, a superb new album and his first new work in five years. A collection of eleven unique, reflective songs recorded at various locations between 1991 and 2026, the album stands as a deeply personal and compelling new statement from one of Britain's most singular musical voices.

Across more than five decades, Hammill has built an extraordinary body of work that has continually challenged expectations while remaining emotionally direct, intellectually searching and artistically fearless. First emerging as the driving force behind Van der Graaf Generator, he helped define a more adventurous and uncompromising edge of progressive music, creating a catalogue that remains hugely influential. Alongside that work, he has sustained a remarkable solo career that has seen him explore everything from fierce, experimental rock and intimate piano-led confessionals to electronic abstraction, chamber-like atmospheres and profound, late-period reflection.

That solo journey has been marked by a restless commitment to invention. In 1992, Hammill established his own Fie! label to release and curate his independent work, beginning with the acclaimed Fireships, a more introspective collection that earned widespread praise for songs such as I Will Find You, Curtains and Gaia. A year later he revealed a more rock-oriented side with The Noise, further underlining the breadth and unpredictability of his songwriting. Since then, Hammill has continued to pursue a unique creative path, producing work that is never static, never complacent, and always unmistakably his own.

Tears In Time continues that tradition with quiet authority. Drawing together recordings made over an extended span of years, the album carries a rare sense of depth and perspective, its eleven songs shaped by memory, experience and reflection.

​Peter says:
“These songs have been a long time in the gestation and making. I’m pleased with the way they’ve worked out. They seem to hang together as a group, even though there’s a wide range of styles represented here. I’ve not stopped yet and I’m very happy that songs still seem to find their way into my hands.”
​
As ever with Hammill, the music is absorbing and emotionally resonant, full of nuance, atmosphere and the kind of lyrical and musical insight that only an artist of his stature can bring. Rather than looking backwards, Tears In Time feels like a vivid and vital new chapter - a very special work by a truly unique artist.

Track Listing:
For A Rainy Day
The Wheels
Heavy Weather
Angle Of The Curve
So Much Water
Tabula Rasa
Oh The End
Red Flags (In The Sunset)
You'll Never Know
The Half Of It
And When He Ran