THE FRONT ROW

Welcome to Planet Weekend, the most wonderfully absurd, outrageously fun, and infectiously immersive sonic theme park you’ll visit this year, no ticket required. Dirty Nice, the London-Lisbon duo known for their animated escapism and offbeat alt-pop, have thrown open the gates to their psychedelic playground with an album that’s equal parts concept art, cartoon fever dream, and pure indie pop euphoria.

This isn’t just an album. It’s an experience, a guided tour through a fictional amusement park where every song is a ride, every skit is a jingle, and every hook is a rollercoaster loop you’ll want to ride again. Clocking in at 18 tracks – 12 full-length songs and 6 scene-setting “skits” – Planet Weekend is Dirty Nice at their most confident, conceptual, and creatively unhinged. Think Sgt. Pepper via Adventure Time, dipped in candyfloss and shot through a VHS filter.

WELCOME TO PLANET WEEKEND

The journey begins with a giddy announcement: “Welcome to Planet Weekend Amusement Park, where every day feels like the weekend.” It’s your golden wristband to escapism, and the album wastes no time strapping you in for the first ride.

“Another Life” bursts out of the speakers with fizzy synths and dreamy vocals, serving a slice of hopeful longing with sugar-rush melodies. It’s followed by the shimmering “What I Want to Hear”, pure indie-pop dopamine, and “Like Best Friends”, which captures that surreal, nostalgic feeling of staying out past sunset with nothing but time and sugar in your bloodstream. These tracks feel like the amusement park’s welcome parade: glitter, chaos, and a lot of heart.

ATTRACTION #1: ALIEN ABDUCTION

The next skit is a PA announcement for Alien Abduction, the park’s first big attraction, and it’s where things get weirder, and even more wonderful.

“If I Was Abducted by Aliens” is an interstellar love song with punchy, spaced-out production and deadpan vocals that somehow land emotionally while still feeling like a joke shared under the bleachers. “That’s What We Do” feels like Gorillaz meets Flight of the Conchords, bouncing on a beat so quirky you almost miss how tight the songwriting is. And then there’s “Coco Leche”, a psychedelic milkshake of a track, deliciously silly and borderline euphoric.

This section of the album leans into the surrealism that Dirty Nice have made their signature, a universe where love, heartbreak, and existential dread all wear sparkly alien suits.

FORTUNE TELLER’S TENT: LOVE, LOSS, AND LOOP-DE-LOOPS

Skittering into the fortune teller tent, we’re told: “Tonight, you will meet a past lover.” That prophecy launches us into the album’s most emotionally complex ride.

“Better If We Don’t” is heartache coated in bubblegum, all tension wrapped in groove. It’s the kind of track that makes you dance and cry at the same time, a Dirty Nice specialty. “Devastated By You” ups the stakes, a whirlwind of regret and romantic chaos framed by bright, fluttery production. Then “Merry Go Round Girl” spins like its namesake: dizzying, nostalgic, a bit sad, the breakup you keep going back to even though you know it makes you sick.

This middle section of Planet Weekend is where Dirty Nice flex their songwriting chops hardest. The wacky aesthetics remain, but the emotion cuts through like a fortune you didn’t want to believe, but needed to hear.

HALL OF MIRRORS: EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH

Then the tone shifts. A warped voice dares us: “Dare you confront yourselves?” Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors, the park’s existential centrepiece.

Here, Dirty Nice drop the sugar-rush and swap it for stripped-down vulnerability. “Who Do I Talk To To Make A Complaint” is a beautiful curveball, acoustic, raw, quietly devastating. There’s nowhere to hide in this track. It’s the mirror in the funhouse, cracked and too honest. “What If Love Was a Slot Machine” keeps that stripped-back energy, wrapping existential musings in acoustic guitars and tamed vocals. It’s the comedown, the moment you stop laughing just long enough to realise you’ve actually been feeling a lot until the song absolutely explodes into the chorus providing one of the album’s euphoric highlights.

Both tracks mark a brilliant change in gear, and a necessary one — because without these moments of reflection, the high-energy peaks would feel hollow. Dirty Nice know exactly when to make you feel the drop.

THE FERRIS WHEEL (IS BROKEN AGAIN)

The park’s final attraction is the Ferris Wheel, but, naturally, it’s broken. This busted fairground ride becomes a perfect metaphor for life’s wonky cycles, and the track that follows, “Spit”, is the album’s climax. Rounded in sound, ironic in theme, and emotionally resonant, “Spit” blends Dirty Nice’s cartoon chaos with real-world weariness. It’s a perfect closer: vivid, weirdly anthemic, and emotionally complete.

This track cements Planet Weekend as more than just a gimmick. It’s concept-driven, yes, but it’s also loaded with intent. Every choice feels deliberate, even when it’s ridiculous.

FINAL SKIT: REFUSING TO LEAVE

The album closes with a “News Report” skit that informs us the amusement park is under scrutiny. Apparently, guests are refusing to leave. And honestly? Same.

Planet Weekend isn’t just a record, it’s a world. One that’s easy to enter, hard to leave, and packed with details you’ll want to revisit. It’s the kind of album you spin again as soon as it ends, not because you missed something (though you definitely did), but because it just feels good to be there.

A TRIP WORTH TAKING

Dirty Nice have built something bold here. Planet Weekend blends musical theatre, animation, bedroom pop, and British surrealism into a record that’s every bit as visual as it is sonic. It’s both an escape and a mirror, wrapped in glitch-pop grooves and cartoon logic.

For fans of MGMT, Glass Animals, The Flaming Lips, and the chaotic joy of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, this album will be an instant favourite. But it’s also entirely its own beast, a testament to Dirty Nice’s singular vision.

In a world that often feels beige and predictable, Planet Weekend is a full technicolour joyride. Hop in. Keep your hands inside the ride. And don’t be surprised if you never want to leave.

FFO: MGMT, Glass Animals, The Flaming Lips, The Avalanches
Top Tracks: “Another Life”, “Better If We Don’t”, “Spit”
Verdict: Dirty Nice’s most ambitious, imaginative, and irresistible record yet — a glorious, glitchy escape into a world where heartbreak is silly, aliens are real, and the Ferris Wheel never quite works right.

Live Dates
Planet Weekend Album Tour
2nd October – Leeds (Hyde Park Book Club) 
3rd October – Glasgow (Nice n Sleazy) 
4th October – Manchester (YES) 
8th October – Brighton (Hope & Ruin) 
9th October – Southampton (Heartbreakers) 
10th October – London (Lower Third) 
11th October – Bristol (The Louisiana)