La Dispute - No One Was Driving The Car (September 5th, 2025)

"It’s been six years since La Dispute released their last album, Panorama. Since then, the Michigan post-hardcore band—made up of Jordan Dreyer on vocals, Brad Vander Lugt on drums, Chad Morgan-Sterenberg and Corey Stroffolino on guitar, and Adam Vass on bass—dealt with the stagnance of the pandemic, celebrated the ten-year anniversaries of Wildlife and Rooms Of The House, and began working on No One Was Driving The Car. The fifth studio LP is the first entirely produced by the group, and it came together in Grand Rapids and Detroit, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the Philippines: “I think the change in environment was really helpful to breathing new life into the process each time we came back to it,” Dreyer says.

Partly inspired by the 2017 psychological thriller First Reformed, No One Was Driving The Car reckons with malaise in the shadow of the looming apocalypse, which has noticeably been worsened by the advancement of tech. The title comes from a quote from a police officer Dreyer read in a news article about a lethal self-driving Tesla crash, an absurd event which raises questions about the amount of control we have in our own lives. In fourteen dynamic tracks, the band grapples with the existential topic and the human need to find comfort and a sense of security in an existence where we’re often thrust into chaos without permission. Dreyer yells with a more primal sense and sings in a more refined way, and the guitars have a sharper edge than ever before. “As much as I don’t enjoy the creative process because it’s taxing and often not fun, I also think it’s the most fun that I ever have,” Dreyer contemplates. “It’s the revelations you make, the breakthroughs. It’s banging your head against a wall and suddenly something clicks in a way that feels almost divine, like it came from somewhere else.” - bio by Danielle Chelosky

Tracklist:

Side A - 20:22
1. I Shaved My Head - 3:28
2. Man with Hands and Ankles Bound - 3:18
3. Autofiction Detail - 4:53
4. Environmental Catastrophe Film - 8:41

Side B - 19:34
5. Self-Portrait Backwards - 2:51
6. The Field - 3:59
7. Sibling Fistfight at Mom’s Fiftieth / The Un-sound - 4:00
8. Landlord Calls the Sheriff In - 4:40
9. Steve - 4:01

Side C - 16:34
10. Top-Sellers Banquet - 8:18
11. Saturation Diver - 3:37
12. I Dreamt of a Room with All My Friends I Could Not Get In - 4:14

Side D - 8:23
13. No One Was Driving the Car - 3:19
14. End Times Sermon - 5:03

 

Preorder link

 

hell yeah, song RULES

 

Don’t like they’re releasing them as eps. Like my LD as a full album band. Might just wait til it’s halfway out to start listening to the first half

 

excited but cannot stand this release strategy

 

So the whole thing will be out on September 5th? So that's when I will fully listen to the album lol

I'll still check out some singles but yea not listening to each part individually

 

This song is HELLA good, yes please

 

Listened to single once, love that bass tone. But yeah, I might wait until the whole thing is out to listen to any more.

 

Might have to pull the trigger on the alt cover one

 

I'll probably check out each song once when they're released and then listen to it as a whole when it's all out.

 

The first three songs are to be released tomorrow, they are all good.

 

"Steve" really standing out as a track name here

 

i dig the art

 

Ooh I really like this

 

we’re so back

 

Autofiction detail is so mewithoutYou i love it

 

I like my friend
He's a real guy's guy
He's not a loudmouth like...

 

I really like these 3 songs. I couldn’t control myself and now I can’t stop.

 

A 1 hour plus epic after a 6 year wait and it kicks off with these 3 absolute bangers.

I am excited. Very, very excited.

I will also need to bump First Reformed up my watchlist based off of that bio…

 

First Reformed is amazing, all-time Ethan Hawke performance

 

i don’t think i like i shaved my head at all

 

I love all 3 songs so much already

 

So sad the alt cover already sold out, I'd prefer to own that one immensely even if I don't hate the main cover. Also, is it just me or does Jordan sound different on these tracks? Sounds a bit younger somehow, it's giving me a bit of an uncanny valley feeling.