IST IST play Brighton on back of new album

As guitarist Mat Peters says: “We started working on the album as soon as we got back from the European tour in late 2024. The momentum you carry from a tour into the studio is powerful and you’re still in that live headspace so the music you write in those moments tends to be more visceral. You go with the flow a little bit more rather than it being methodical. What you end up with is a collection of songs already primed for the stage.”

The band is based in Manchester and has been going for just over ten years: “I joined about eight years ago to add some keyboards and a second guitar. The band started as a three-piece, more aggressive and a lot more punk in the early days. Maybe I have mellowed them out a little bit! But they have got a lot more into synthesisers now.

“The best description of the band, maybe it was a review, was that it was industrial disco. I think it means that we are like bands like DAF, German industrial music, but we're also like Fleetwood Mac. Industrial disco is groovy but it has also got an edge to it. We range quite wildly from more atmospheric rock to straight-up guitar indie music. It is all mixed in there. We get described as goth as well, and I don't know if we are a goth band but we share a lot of fans with goth bands.”

As for the album title: “Dagger relates to the duality of life and our lives as musicians. A dagger is a double-edged blade, as is life. There is a lot of beauty and romance in the world but it's also full of danger and violence. Our lives as musicians and artists are at times so rewarding but we walk the tightrope of being able to release our art into the world and it potentially coming crashing down the next day if freedom of expression is curtailed, as it is in lots of places, or if people just don't like your latest output. One day we could be touring and taking our music all over the world and the next we could be looking for a job. We wanted the artwork to encapsulate this paradox – something elegant and eye-catching whilst inherently dangerous and provocative.”

The band has been full time for two years – which means that there is another duality that the title touches on: “It was a big transition for all of us. We're not backed by a record label. We run it all ourselves so that's another two sides really. We are artists and musicians but we're also business partners that spend a lot of time staring at spreadsheets. But it's great. You can forget the actual freedom. It means that we decide what we sell on the merch desk. That's not a decision that's taken out of our hands because we own all the rights to the music.”

Their reward has been the best response to any album they have made: “The response has been amazing. It is our fifth album and I think there was a bit of going back to the early days and maybe simplifying some of the music and some of the images. We also wanted to be more aggressive than the previous album which we did which was a lot more commercial but I don't think that really made a big difference for us. You learn from each album that you make, and I think we are all really proud of this one.”