The Cribs have shared a new single, ‘Never The Same’, which was originally written for Louis Tomlinson. Listen below.
The song is the latest preview of the Wakefield trio’s ninth studio album ‘Selling A Vibe’, set for release this Friday (January 9). Pre-order/pre-save here.
“‘Never The Same’ is kind of a throwback to our original approach: trim all the fat, bring it in as short as possible and keep out of the way… streamlined, stylish,” explained singer/guitarist Ryan Jarman.
“It’s almost a little paradoxical as lyrically it’s about feeling like a different person at this point in life, and missing the chaos of your previous existence, even if it wouldn’t make sense anymore.”
Singer/bassist Gary Jarman added: “We wrote ‘Never The Same’ the evening that we returned home from Italy, after playing Louis Tomlinson’s Away From Home festival.
“The night before, we had been talking with Louis’ manager about maybe writing and/or producing some tracks for his next LP, so upon our return to Wakefield we got to work and banged this out, fully formed, in a couple of hours.”
However, the band ended up getting “attached” to the song and ultimately “decided to keep it for ourselves”.
Gary went on: “I think that the freedom of conceiving it for someone else just meant that we didn’t overthink anything, and just got straight to the point – it came together fast. So yeah, in an alternate timeline it could’ve been a Louis song.”
‘Never The Same’ is accompanied by a sun-kissed 8mm official video, shot on location in San Diego, California. This footage is interspersed with clips of the Jarman brothers performing live on their 2025 US tour.
“We have been interested in directing our own video for a while. Ryan in particular has always been very interested in film, and had recently made a video for Exclamation Pony that had come out really good,” Gary said.
“Shot on location in San Diego and featuring live footage from the shows, the video was mostly shot by Ryan and then edited by Gary, so it’s all on us. We were busy so we knew the chances of us all getting together to make another video on 16mm was unlikely, and this allowed us to try and keep it in the same world whilst also having the opportunity to make something candid and honest.”
The Cribs performed at Tomlinson’s indie event Away From Home in 2023. The former One Direction member is due to release his third solo album, ‘How Did I Get Here?’, on January 23.
NME recently featured Tomlinson’s next record on a rundown of the most anticipated album releases of 2026, along with The Cribs’ ‘Selling A Vibe’. ‘How Did I Get Here?’ will follow on from 2022’s ‘Faith In The Future’.
The latter, Tomlinson’s second solo LP, was produced by Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, Wolf Alice). The singer co-wrote the album alongside The Music frontman Rob Harvey, and the songwriting and production team Red Triangle.
During an interview with NME about ‘Selling A Vibe’ last summer, Ryan Jarman talked about joining forces with producer and ex-Chairlift member Patrick Wimberly (Beyoncé, Ellie Goulding, Lil Yachty) to fulfil The Cribs’ pop-leaning vision for the album.
“We’ve always had a real pop side to the band, and we love pop music. We always really liked pop melodies and a lot of pop devices, like big hooks and all that stuff,” he explained.
“We’ve often – just out of some punk rock guilt – buried it. We focused more on the noisier side. So when we worked with Patrick, we felt like we had a good set of pop songs.”
- READ MORE: The Cribs: every album ranked in order of greatness
Ryan continued: “We wanted to work with him so he could work on bringing that out. His production was really good for that. He came up with a lot of things that we wouldn’t have necessarily come up with on our own.
“I just didn’t feel like we had anything left to prove, as far as the indie and punk shit goes. We’ve done eight records of that.”
The Cribs will embark on a UK headline tour this March, ahead of an outdoor show at Leeds’ Millennium Square in July. They’ll also make an appearance at Truck Festival and Kendal Calling 2026 later that month. Find any remaining tickets here.
The trio are heading out on a run of UK instore/outstore intimate release gigs this month, too. Find more information here.
The Cribs’ 2026 UK headline tour dates are:
MARCH
18 – Boiler Shop, Newcastle
20 – Foundry, Sheffield
21 – Albert Hall, Manchester
22 – O2 Institute 1, Birmingham
24 – Rock City, Nottingham
25 – Tramshed, Cardiff
27 – Concorde 2, Brighton
28 – Concorde 2, Brighton
JULY
11 – Millennium Square, Leeds
‘Selling A Vibe’ follows on from The Cribs’ acclaimed 2020 record ‘Night Network’, which NME called “their best album in a decade” in a five-star review. It’ll also feature the previous singles ‘Summer Seizures’ and ‘A Point Too Hard To Make’.
