Two decades after they first gate‑crashed the UK indie landscape with awkward charm, razor‑edged wit and a sound that felt like post‑punk fed through a blender of suburban surrealism, Young Knives are returning to the record that started it all. Their Mercury‑nominated debut Voices of Animals and Men turns 20 this year — and the band are marking the occasion with a full UK tour celebrating the album’s strange, spiky brilliance.

The run begins in Norwich on 12 November and winds through Nottingham, Portsmouth, Carlisle, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Bristol and Brighton, before closing with two homecoming nights in Oxford on 10 and 11 December. Pre‑sale opens 4 March, with general sale following on 6 March via the band’s website.

Released in August 2006 and produced by Gang of Four legend Andy Gill, Voices of Animals and Men was the kind of debut that didn’t just introduce a band — it introduced a worldview. Angular riffs, nervy humour, and a sense of everyday absurdity powered singles like Here Comes The Rumour Mill, She’s Attracted To and Weekends And Bleak Days (Hot Summer), all of which cracked the UK Top 40 and helped earn the band a Mercury Prize nomination the following year.

Frontman Henry Dartnall looks back on that era with a mixture of affection and clarity. “We’ve connected with so many people through Voices of Animals and Men, and it feels like the right moment to celebrate it,” he says. “We owe a debt of gratitude to this record, so these shows are a chance to acknowledge where we came from.”

That early energy — scrappy, emotional, and unfiltered — still resonates with him. “It’s simple, but also emotionally raw and obvious, which makes the songs easy to digest,” he reflects. Working with Gill, he adds, pushed the band into deeper territory: “He had a way of getting under the songs and bringing more emotion out of them. It was a funny, drinky time at his house/studio, but also thoughtful, very memorable, and life changing of course.”

Young Knives’ story began in 1996 in Ashby‑de‑la‑Zouch, where brothers Henry and Thomas Bonsu‑Dartnall (aka The House of Lords) teamed up with school friend Oliver Askew. After relocating to Oxford, they caught the attention of local label Shifty Disco, whose early support led the NME to brand them “an enigmatic concern” — a fitting description for a band who always seemed to revel in being slightly out of step.

Signing to the then‑new Transgressive Records brought major‑label backing and a sudden surge of visibility. Their eccentric videos, explosive live shows and outsider aesthetic made them unlikely darlings of MTV2, winning over a devoted crowd of geeks, misfits and anyone who appreciated a band that could be both sharp‑tongued and deeply sincere.

Across Voices of Animals and Men and its follow‑up Superabundance, Young Knives landed multiple Top 40 singles, sold‑out tours, and appearances on Later… with Jools Holland, while tracks like The Decision, Terra Firma and Turn Tail became staples on BBC Radio 1 and 6 Music.

By 2010, the trio had built their own studio and launched their own label, Gadzook, choosing autonomy over industry machinery. The albums that followed — Ornaments From the Silver Arcade (2011), Sick Octave (2013), Barbarians (2020) and Landfill (2025) — chart a band continually reinventing themselves, unafraid to get weirder, darker or more experimental.

Their 2025 tour behind Landfill sold out quickly, proving that the cult following they earned in the mid‑2000s has only deepened with time.

Now, with Voices of Animals and Men hitting its 20‑year milestone, Young Knives are ready to revisit the album that launched them — not as a nostalgia act, but as artists acknowledging the spark that set their long, unpredictable journey in motion.

Support on the tour comes from London trio Hot Face, fresh from releasing their debut Automated Response via Speedy Wunderground — a pairing that feels perfectly pitched: two generations of oddball innovators sharing the same stage.

For fans who grew up shouting along to She’s Attracted To or discovering the band through late‑night MTV2, these shows promise to be a rare chance to reconnect with a record that captured the jittery, joyful chaos of mid‑2000s indie — and still sounds strangely timeless today.