My New Band Believe

My New Band Believe — 2026

“Picton strips everything back and somehow makes it feel even more expansive.”

Cameron Picton spent his early years in black midi but when they ended in 2023 he found himself in a conflict. At the time, a solo record nor another conventional band situation really interested him until now! My New Band Believe is his debut and much like his former bandmate Geordie Greep’s solo album, this is a record that operates in a completely different space than black midi. The album was built across dozens of sessions with more than twenty musicians cycling through, a process that sounds crazy on paper but somehow produced something that feels completely inevitable once you hear it. It has a very high-level playing field where every track is engaging with its dream floating vibe, forgoing any real rules for the album and attempting to tap an emotional connection with his listeners.

The first thing to know about My New Band Believe is that it has more of an acoustic core, which at surface level may scare you a bit but the instrumentation and arrangements that surround that acoustic delivery work so well together. Picton went in with strict rules about no electronic instruments and minimal reverb, and the result is a record where every string scrape and breath lands with unusual weight. He then brought in twelve acoustic guitars, a string section recorded with all the mistakes stacked and left in, horns, pianos, and a toy accordion to complete his sound. When talking about it, this record may seem too over the top but its crispness delivers a constant immersive experience (especially if you have headphones on)!

black midi was an incredibly exciting band from the beginning that made intricate song structures and turn on the dime instrument changes cool. The complexity of their post-punk was controlled and in your face. Picton’s work here is warmer than that. The songs build and scatter and rebuild, which is structurally familiar from his old band, but the difference is that these songs are pulling you toward a human center rather than spinning you outward into pure abstraction.

Black Country, New Road’s more recent, string-forward work, particularly after Isaac Wood’s departure has a similar vibe to My New Band Believe. I think if you have been a fan of early Neutral Milk Hotel there are pieces that you will recognize like the rustic and stacked weights of carefully placed instruments. And Judee Sill, whose wide view approach to folk pop is reflected here as Picton has cited her directly as an influence. The sting arrangements with his vocal delivery also remind me of Kishi Bashi.

“Target Practice” opens the record and quickly establishes that Picton is playing a different game than you might have expected. The vocals feel somewhat threatening and specific, but the music underneath is gives you flamenco guitar and Beatles-ish strings. The conflict between what is being said and how it sounds is the whole point. “Heart of Darkness” is the album’s most ambitious track, an eight-and-a-half-minute song that draws on the transatlantic folk tradition of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn while situating Picton’s story in something that feels bigger. The nylon guitar lines in the first half move with a coiled precision, and the final three minutes let the ambience breathe out slowly until it becomes almost ghostly. It really is a cool effect. “Actress” is the peak of the record and arrives late, which works well in the tracklist. The song is another over eight minute experience as it weighs a friend’s capacity to burn their own life down against the scale of what they could have been, as Picton lets the music do the arguing. The string arrangements by Kiran Leonard pile up until they become a roar, and then the whole thing resolves with a sound like something falling in slow motion. It is a top level song.

Picton writes from inside perspectives that cycle through relationships looking for recognition, they rage against becoming their parents, they hold someone in their crosshairs and feel nothing like the power they expected. “One Night” closes the album with whispered words about physical intimacy that go nowhere satisfying, which is entirely the point. The line “You are not the man I took you for” lands less as accusation and more as quiet grief. The people in these songs are trying to push past their own fear, even when they keep failing at it, and that tension is what makes the writing legit and feel real.

My New Band Believe is a record that asks for your full attention and then consistently rewards it in ways that are hard to anticipate on a first listen. It is not an easy album in the sense that it does not do the same thing twice and may not be immediately connecting. But the intelligence behind the entire project matched by his passion for quick switch arrangements is the combination that makes you want to spin it again. It seems that Picton has figured out what kind of artist he wants to be, and it turns out that person is even more interesting from what we already knew in his black midi days.