Sondre Lerche releases new album 'Acrobats'

 Acclaimed Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche today releases his 11th studio album, Acrobats, via PLZ / Virgin, alongside focus single ‘Drive Me Away From You’. His first full-length collection of entirely new music in more than four years, Acrobats is an eight-song suite that pingpongs between joy and introspection, loss and love.

On the album release today, Lerche shared: "This record has been my life for the last three years, so I’m like a kid on Christmas Eve when release day comes. It’s almost embarrassing! It feels like the most compact, flamboyant and sincere work I’ve ever made, so there’s an extra layer of excitement and vulnerability in sharing it. A loving statement of anti-cynicism, let’s go!"

Sondre Lerche has always been a romantic. Whether it be the songs he wrote as a teen for his critically acclaimed 2001 debut, Faces Down, or starring as the love-lorn Christian in the Norwegian stage production of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. In 2026, though, his love of, well, love is shot through with a kind of defiance.

“There’s a dissonance between the increasingly dystopian world we live in and finding beauty and peace in your private life,” he says. “It feels almost like a paradox that I’m blessed to have landed in a life and a love that is very meaningful and true. And, at the same time, it feels impossible to write a love song without taking into account the unspeakable things that are happening in the world. Falling in love feels more and more like an act of defiance.”

That sentiment carries into focus single ‘Drive Me Away From You’, a bombastic song that sees Lerche reaching new vocal heights due to his work on Moulin Rouge! - and new emotional ones. The track marks a return to the flamboyant love songs he wrote earlier in his career, now viewed through the eyes and experience of a man in his forties.

“I wrote a lot of very romantic songs when I was younger, and then I got into more of an existential love song period,” Lerche says. “This felt like returning to the sentiment of the flamboyant love songs that I used to write — through the eyes and experience of a man in his forties. Fuck it, this is how I feel. Love will not ask for your permission to occur.”

Acrobats has already received an 8/10 review from Uncut, who praise Lerche’s “literate, complex, beautifully crafted music” and highlighting ‘Drive Me Away From You’ as a “dramatic Roy Orbison-style belter.”

Recorded across nine studios with longtime producers Matias Téllez and Kato Ådland, and Vetle Junker, Alexander von Mehren and Jørgen Trœen, Acrobats is a more sobering follow-up to 2022’s Avatars of Love - although no less brimming with passion. Lerche sees himself as the “curator” of the record, bringing in musician friends old and new to create delicate biomes of sound.

The album features arrangements by Sean O’Hagan of The High Llamas, alongside performances from the Stockholm Studio Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and a cast of Norwegian jazz and classical musicians.

Its scale and emotional clarity were also informed by Lerche’s experience performing in Moulin Rouge!, which encouraged him to make bold, theatrical choices while rooting them in sincerity and tenderness. The album includes the previously released ‘Little Kids’, a song about extending empathy and forgiveness towards your younger self, and the sprawling, nine-minute ‘Follow The River’. Inspired by Lerche witnessing Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at the Oslo Opera House, the latter features a gospel choir and makes no excuses for being completely overcome with feelings of love and desire.

At the album’s emotional centre sits ‘Love Is All’, a whisper-soft chamber-pop song led by Lerche’s voice and Solveig Wang’s winding clarinet. Depicting two people finding each other in a bar against the backdrop of a world full of man-made disasters, the song embodies the combination of resignation and hope that runs throughout Acrobats.

The record closes with ‘Life-Changing Love’, which began as an attempt to write a simple love song before the news, forever wars and disregard for human life began to intrude. Inspired by ambient artist William Basinski, it still wants to be a love song - but one that tries not to look the other way.

“If there’s one theme to this album, I suppose it is finding love in times of great unrest and hopelessness,” Lerche says.

Acrobats follows Lerche’s Norwegian Grammy-winning 2022 double album Avatars of Love. In 2025, he celebrated more than two decades of music with a career-spanning concert series at the Oslo Opera House.

Sondre Lerche’s new album, Acrobats, is out now via PLZ / Virgin. The album is now available for purchase physically on exclusive 2xLP gatefold ‘Splendor’ edition including recent EP Turning Up The Heat Again, as well as a standard 1xLP edition on transparent red vinyl, and CD.

Sondre Lerche will embark on an extensive headline tour in support of Acrobats, taking him across the UK, Europe and US. For dates and tickets, visit sondrelerche.com

LIVE DATES

September

• 10 - Boston, MA @ Arts at The Armory
• 12 - Washington, DC @ Miracle Theatre
• 13 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
• 15 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
• 16 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Cedar
• 19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Sid The Cat Auditorium
• 20 - Ojai, CA @ Ojai Women’s Club
• 21 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
• 24 - Portland, OR @ Mission Theater
• 25 - Seattle, WA @ Triple Door

October

• 01 - Bryne, NO @ Hvelvet Scene
• 02 - Stavanger, NO @Tou
• 03 - Skien, NO @ Parkbiografen
• 07 - Tromsø, NO @ Bryggeriet Scene
• 08 - Hammerfest, NO @Arktisk Kultursenter
• 09 - Alta, NO @ Rabagast
• 10 - Bodø, NO @ Beddingen Kulturhus
• 14 - Copenhagen, DK @ Rust
• 15 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 16 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 17 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 22 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 23 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 24 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatret Scene
• 29 - Kongsberg, NO @ Energimølla
• 30 - Trondheim, NO @ Byscenen
• 31 - Sogndal, NO @ Sogndal Kulturhus

November

• 02 - Arhus, DK @ Train
• 03 - Stockholm, SE @ Hus7
• 04 - Gothenburg, SE @ Skeppet
• 12 - Lisbon, PT @ Univerdsidade Nova
• 13 - Aveiro, PT @ Teatro Aveirense
• 14 - Arcos de Valdevez, PT @ Casa das Artes
• 16 - Barcelona, ES @ Sala Upload
• 17 - Madrid, ES @ Sala B
• 20 - Vienna, AT @ Blue Bird Festival
• 21 - Torino, IT @ Spazio211
• 22 - Bologna, IT @ Baumhaus
• 23 - Milano, IT @ Arci Bellezza
• 27 - London, UK @ The Lower Third
• 29 - Utrecht, NL @ Vredenburg
• 30 - Breda, NL @ Mezz

December

• 02 - Groningen, NL @ Simplon

'Acrobats' - album tracklist

1. How Much Of This Was Planned

2. Little Kids

3. Drive Me Away From You

4. Love Is All

5. Follow The River

6. Acrobats

7. In The Time Before I Knew Her Well

8. Life-Changing Love