Lael Neale Announces New Album As Killers Do

Lael Neale is stepping fully into her DIY era with As Killers Do, a new album recorded in a Los Angeles bungalow kitchen and set to arrive via her own Consensual Sound imprint this November.

The minimalist lo-fi auteur, following three critically acclaimed albums on Sub Pop, has announced her fourth collaboration with producer and accompanist Guy Blakeslee, with As Killers Do due 20 November 2026.

Alongside the announcement, Neale has shared ‘Slip Away’, a throbbing garage-rock meditation on impermanence that combines her signature Omnichord and built-in drum machine with Blakeslee’s psychedelic guitar.

The accompanying homemade stop-motion video pushes the album’s handcrafted aesthetic even further, featuring Neale’s black-and-white paintings appearing and disappearing line by line.

Neale frames ‘Slip Away’ around the uncomfortable reality of impermanence, writing: “We act as little gods. Assuming great import. All that we build, create, collect and become, to be taken away.”

Recorded on a Tascam cassette 8-track in the kitchen of a bungalow in Echo Park, As Killers Do embraces the raw immediacy that has become central to Neale’s work. Across just 28 minutes and ten tracks, the album moves through Paisley Underground echoes, ’60s girl-group harmonies, proto-punk, outsider folk and surrealist psych-pop.

https://youtu.be/j02rXVmXfl4?si=HoJC8ta4XFiNSoCb

But beneath the deliberately stripped-back production sits a record about the increasingly complicated experience of being human in a hyperconnected world. Neale explores anxiety, obsessive thinking and the chaos of digital life before gradually moving towards something more hopeful, grounded and mystical.

It’s an approach that extends beyond the music. Neale has never owned a smartphone and remains wary of social media, while her new Consensual Sound imprint — named after her Substack — gives her complete control over the way the record is released.

Only 500 vinyl copies of As Killers Do will be produced, each featuring a handmade cover. Neale’s original paintings, which she has also been selling at the merch table, appear throughout the album’s visual world.

For Neale, the decision to step away from the machinery of mass consumption is increasingly central to her artistic philosophy.

“I make music and paintings because it’s what I do,” she says. “Because I go crazy inside my own mind when I’m not making things.”

That ethos makes As Killers Do feel less like a conventional album campaign and more like an invitation into Neale’s deliberately handmade artistic universe — one where imperfections, direct connection and creativity matter more than numbers. Before the album arrives, Neale will also take her music on the road, with upcoming appearances including Green Man Festival, Pop-Kultur Festival, Brighton Psych Fest, Manchester Psych Fest and Edinburgh Psych Fest, alongside headline and support dates across the UK, Europe and North America.

As Killers Do is released 20 November 2026 via Consensual Sound.

‘Slip Away’ is out now.