James Marriott

Step inside the visceral, immersive world of Warning Signs, the third full-length effort from singer-songwriter James Marriott, where "pop magic" is all about the moment — the split second in a song when everything snaps into focus. You can hear this musical frisson in "Double Bed", in lead single "Burn Down The Disco" and in "Déjà Vu".

"This album, it's all 'moment-based' for me," Marriott, who is based in Brighton, explains. "For a song to latch into my head, there has to be a moment where I think, 'Oh yeah, this is amazing.' I can pick out something in every track on the record that gives me that feeling."

Almost every song on Warning Signs (due January 8th, 2027 via AWAL) grapples with emotionally large subject matter: coming to terms with the end of a relationship and the unraveling of day-to-day life. The 11-track collection is, at its core, "a triangle" representing "the rise and the fall of a man in love" — starting in anticipation, moving through desire and yearning, and sliding into the aftermath of a breakup. Each song is tagged with its own literal "warning sign": a double bed for early intimacy; a mirrorball for the night aflame; looping arrows for late-night spirals.

The album concept grew from the hazard-style weather symbols used in the music video for 2025 standalone single "California Rain", which detailed life on the road. Playing with those storm and flood icons "woke something up" in Marriott and led to the idea of using icons to represent contrasting emotional states. He developed the record while touring after last year's chart-topping LP Don't Tell The Dog and 2023's Are We There Yet?, receiving support from Radio 1 and coverage in Dork, House Of Solo and Rock Sound, which awarded him their Breakthrough Artist Award toward the end of 2025.

That commercial success took him to major festivals including Reading & Leeds, Latitude, Neighbourhood Weekender and Electric Picnic, through headline tours across the UK, Europe and North America (with a rescheduled Australia run booked for this October), and he capped off the year with two sold-out shows at London's Roundhouse.

A former YouTuber who built an audience through pop culture commentary and challenge videos, Marriott has kept that past without disowning it. He is known for obliquely funny, candid songwriting and an instinct for visual storytelling; he says there are now two pools of people who know him — some from online, others from his music — and he's "completely at peace with that." He aims to reward an audience willing to give everything a go.

Recorded over a month at Daft Studios in the Belgian Ardennes, the secluded sessions allowed Marriott and collaborators (including members of his live band) to "just really knuckle down and get lost in the music." Days would start in the control room and run into the evening, followed by group film nights. Influences mentioned include Magdalena Bay, Slayyyter, Charli XCX, Underscores, Harry Styles, Dua Lipa and Sam Fender; Marriott describes his approach as "anti-pop" — an introverted version of pop music written from the point of view of an "outsider" who follows his curiosity across genres.

After the final mixes were sent, Marriott says he sat alone in his home studio and cried through the record six times. "It's like The Truman Show," he says. "You spend years in this internalised world, and then one day you walk through the door that feels endless and open — like you're finally leaving that world behind." Warning Signs shows how far he can go as a musician, from jagged, Geese-inspired choruses on "Hell" to the towering final release on "Five Year Plan."

Away from music, Marriott describes a deliberately calm, "therapised" routine: mornings of coffee and reading, long solo walks, focused writing and occasional evenings on the beach. He is interested in exploring writing for theatre or film scores in future, inspired by the path of artists like Trent Reznor.

Following a One Night Only show at Brixton Academy in September, Marriott plans to bring these songs to larger rooms and make his live shows "deliberately theatrical," matching the scorched-earth endings and romantic fallout of Warning Signs.

• James Marriott — at Metro Music Hall — All Ages (Salt Lake City)