The Veils Embrace Life on New Album ‘Fragile World’

19 June 2026

Arriving just over a year after their last release, Fragile World marks a striking shift in tone and energy for the band.

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Recorded live to tape in New Zealand by Paddy Hill, with production by Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, The Chills, Folk Bitch Trio), Fragile World captures The Veils in an urgent and instinctive mode.

Frontman Finn Andrews says: “I make each album, generally, as a kind of atonement for the last. Asphodels was so quiet and introspective, I think I just wanted to make something strident and full of life for a goddamn change.”  As can be heard on the first single Lungs which has a yearning drive as Andrews sings: “I wish there was somewhere we could go / Somewhere my heart will not succumb / I want to hear it in my voice / I want to feel it in my lungs”.

The opening track Aurora, with its very tasteful video directed by Alexander Gandar, was written as it was being recorded, inspired by a huge geomagnetic storm that raged over New Zealand that day while a song like Little White Bird (Fragile World) outlines the overall theme of the album as if Nina Simone and Arthur Russell are having a little dance.

Focus track My Foolish Heart contradicts that with a piano-based almost Country/Folk style.  From lonely, fragile ballads via uplifting tracks to the first ever cover to appear on a Veils album (Sinéad O’Connor – In This Heart), Fragile World is Finn Andrews most diverse work yet.

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The album’s title is both a reflection of the present moment – a time in which many institutions appear to be crumbling before our eyes – and a metaphor for the act of creation itself. The process of making music, Andrews notes, is a delicate and fragile undertaking where thousands of small decisions gradually coalesce into a finished whole.

“We went into the studio with a lot of songs, but very little idea of the arrangements or instrumentation. It was truly exciting having no idea what this record would sound like and only a few weeks to figure it out. It’s mostly Tom and I playing everything, with Joseph McCallum coming in at times. It was all very instinctual, quite full-on, and scary at times – but a good kind of scary, not scary like the real world out there.”

With its immediacy, intensity, and emotional clarity, Fragile World stands as one of The Veils’ most compelling releases to date.

The Veils alongside Banished Music will also embark on a nationwide album tour, including 6 band shows, featuring the closing show of Strange Universe: Winter in Auckland, and 4 solo performances.

BANISHED MUSIC PRESENTS

THE VEILS
FRAGILE WORLD ALBUM TOUR
+ JAZMINE MARY

AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND, 2026

Thurs 25 June 2026 @ Errick’s, Dunedin

Fri 26 June 2026 @ Lake Wānaka Centre, Wānaka

Sat 27 June 2026 @ The Powerstation, Auckland
Part of Strange Universe Winter 2026

Thurs 2 July @ The Loons, Lyttelton

Fri 3 July @ Last Place, Hamilton

Sat 4 July @ Meow Nui, Wellington

Wed 8 July @ Deville, Nelson (SOLO)

Thurs 9 July @ The Dome, Gisborne (SOLO)

Fri 10 July @ War Memorial Centre Concert Chamber, Whanganui (SOLO)