SPILL NEWS: INDIE-POP BAND VOXTROT ANNOUNCE FIRST NEW ALBUM IN 18 YEARS ‘DREAMERS IN EXILE’ | TOUR DATES

INDIE-POP BAND VOXTROT ANNOUNCE FIRST NEW ALBUM IN 18 YEARS

DREAMERS IN EXILE OUT FEBRUARY 27 ON CULT HERO RECORDS

Acclaimed Texas-based indie-pop/rock band Voxtrot are excited to announce their new album Dreamers in Exile out on February 27, 2026 on their own Cult Hero Records (pre-order).

After more than a decade apart, Voxtrot has reconvened with a renewed sense of purpose. Dreamers in Exile is the band’s first full-length in nearly twenty years. Written and self-recorded in Lockhart, Texas at bassist Jason Chronis’ Haunted Air Studio, and mixed by Dean Reid (Lana Del Rey, James Blake), the album captures a group both wiser and bolder.

Where the early records chronicled the wide-eyed tumult of youth, Dreamers in Exile is an album of reckoning and renewal, tracing the passage of time, the distance between past and present, and the hope of connection that endures through it all. It is at once a continuation and a reinvention—the sound of Voxtrot returning not to reclaim their legacy, but to expand it.

The band also announced a North American tour in support of Dreamers in Exile. The tour will include shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C. and more. The Bandsintown pre-sale and venue pre-sales are already open for purchase; the general on-sale is this Friday.

To mark the album’s release, the band is sharing its new single “Fighting Back” along with a Super 8–shot video directed by longtime collaborator Annie Gunn, with cinematography by Peter Simonite. Inspired by Ramesh Srivastava’s time spent living in Los Angeles, the song transforms a period of uncertainty into something defiant and cinematic, capturing the album’s core themes of self-reckoning, survival, and hard-won joy.

On the song the band’s Ramesh Srivastava says:

“I moved to Los Angeles in 2015. Voxtrot had been broken up for a few years by that point, so I decided to throw myself headfirst into the entertainment industry and see what Tinseltown had to offer. On the drive from Texas to California, I caught wind of a room for rent on Rosemont Street in Echo Park and agreed to move in, sight unseen.

My three roommates were musicians as well: two were in an indie band called Cold Violets (who opened for Voxtrot at the Regent Theater during our 2022 reunion tour), and the third was a bluegrass musician who plays in a band called The Hillbenders.

For a few weeks I worked for a courier company. It was early spring, so a big part of my job was picking up haute couture from boutiques on Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive and delivering it to actors and musicians to try on ahead of the Oscars and Grammys. Having had a bustling career myself not long before, a job like this was obviously a significant blow to my ego, but it catalyzed a long process of coming back to myself.

In general, those days were bizarrely shapeless. Often I would wake up at 5 a.m. and wander the streets of Los Angeles, stopping in coffee shops to write poetry and stare into infinity. But with that directionlessness came a certain levity, and I relished the nights hanging out with my roommates – drinking, singing, playing acoustic guitar, and listening to records. It was a freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Musically, ‘Fighting Back’ echoes the catchy propulsiveness of early Voxtrot, but my favorite element is the cornucopia of synths peppered throughout. Jason and I borrowed a Juno and went to town! I love the dark ’80s atmosphere, and whenever I hear it, I picture the crimson-lit bar scenes in American Gigolo, which were filmed at the Beverly Hills Hotel… where I distinctly remember the doorman shouting that I had ten minutes to make my delivery before he was gonna tow my car.

The video for “Fighting Back” was directed and filmed by our longtime friend and artistic collaborator Annie Gunn. She’s taken many pictures of us over the years, including the majority of our record covers, but this is our first time working with her on a video. Cinematography was by Annie’s partner, Peter Simonite, with whom she previously co-directed Explosions in the Sky’s “Postcards from 1952.” Peter also brings a deep feature-film background, including second-unit and additional photography work within Terrence Malick’s filmmaking world [including The Tree of Life, To the Wonder, and Song to Song], and he has also directed music video work for Spoon.”

On the video, Annie Gunn adds:

“I’ve been collaborating with the band since the early 2000s on stills for album artwork. The visuals I’ve made for the band have always been in the analog black and white world so it felt fitting that the video for ‘Fighting Back’ also be shot on film. I wanted to bring some of the grainy, textural, imperfect nature of the stills we’ve done into motion. Peter Simonite as cinematographer brought his 1960s super8 camera and we shot on different film stocks, embracing all the organic the fame lines, light leaks, grain and imperfections we could. I hope the result feels like a moving collage of the band’s performance and I love how it ties into the visual world we’ve been creating for the last 20+ years.”

In 2022, more than a decade after disbanding, indie heroes Voxtrot reunited. Formed in 2003, the Texas group quickly earned global attention with their EPs Raised By Wolves and Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives, released on their own Cult Hero Records. The band, vocalist/guitarist Ramesh Srivastava, guitarist Mitch Calvert, bassist Jason Chronis, keyboardist Jared van Fleet, and drummer Matt Simon, rode the momentum of the 2000s blog-era to chart success, with 2006’s “Your Biggest Fan” debuting at #3 on Billboard’s Hot Singles Sales chart and their 2007 self-titled LP reaching #14 on Heatseekers.

Their 2022 return, including the Early Music EP reissue, the Cut From The Stone rarities collection, and their first tour in over ten years, was met with overwhelming enthusiasm. Energized by that response, the band committed to making new music. “In the green room before the last show of the reunion tour, we decided to make a new album,” says Srivastava. By January 2023, they were recording Dreamers in Exile at Chronis’ Haunted Air Studio in Lockhart, Texas, later mixed by Dean Reid (Lana Del Rey, James Blake).

The resulting 11-song album feels both like a continuation of Voxtrot’s 2000s sound and an evolution shaped by time. Opener “Another Fire” sets the tone with a gorgeous, wistful rumination on time and history—both personal and political—it’s a wonderful expression of how the past is a constant influence on the present. Songs like “Fighting Back,” “New World Romance,” and the anthemic title track explore hope, disillusionment, and resilience; “Esprit de Cœur” and “Rock & Roll Jesus” deliver pointed social commentary without sacrificing melody; and closer “Babylone,” inspired by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé as well as Srivastava’s own past relationship, ends the album on a haunting, cinematic note.

Though all five original members contribute, Dreamers in Exile centers around the creative core of Srivastava, Chronis, and Simon, recapturing Voxtrot’s chemistry while expanding their legacy. “There’s so much optimism—this bright, happy quality—on this record,” says Srivastava, “and I think the reason is because we’ve learned from everything we’ve experienced in the past. And the most important thing we learned is that we are the people who bring the energy into the room. You can’t wait for it to appear—or for other people in the industry to give you permission. That’s why we’re putting this out on Cult Hero—when you bring your own enthusiasm into the world, it’s truly magnetic. Because it’s absolutely real.”

Tour Dates

03.25 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
03.26 – Los Angeles, CA @ Pacific Electric
03.27 – Costa Mesa, CA @ Constellation Room
03.28 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
03.30 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
03.31 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
04.02 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Urban Lounge
04.03 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
04.05 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
04.06 – Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
04.08 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry
04.10 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
04.11 – Washington, DC @ The Atlantis
04.13 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
04.14 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade (Hell)
04.15 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
04.17 – Dallas, TX @ Deep Ellum Art Co
04.18 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk

Artist Links

Background Photo Credit: Annie Gunn