La Roux has released Old Flames, her first studio album in six years. The record arrived on Friday 6 November through Vertigo, with Elly Jackson credited as its writer, composer, producer and arranger. It is the fourth La Roux album and follows 2020’s Supervision.
The release is accompanied by a live performance and signing at Rough Trade East in London on Saturday. Jackson has also set out four UK dates for March 2027, giving listeners a chance to hear the material on tour after the smaller release-week events.
How La Roux made Old Flames
Jackson began the project after the end of a long relationship. In an interview with Rolling Stone Australia and New Zealand, she described making the record while working through changes in her personal life and thinking about her identity. The album is built around her own perspective, from the experiences that informed the songs to the decisions she made about how they should sound.
For Jackson, that meant drawing on styles she had listened to for years but had used less directly on her previous albums. In an earlier interview about the project, she spoke about revisiting the R&B sounds she remembered from the early 2000s, naming Mariah Carey and the Neptunes among her reference points. She described changing her musical starting point from album to album as a way to give herself a different challenge as a writer.
The approach also means that a listener coming to the record through the earlier singles has several points of entry. Cabin Fever introduced the project, followed by previews including Lose Myself and Babyline. The full album places those songs in a sequence that opens with an introduction, Old Flames (Intro), and comes back to the title track at the end.
The record moves between different strains of pop as it follows that story. In The Skinny’s review, Rick Fulton hears R&B in the early part of the album and Europop in To Make Our Love and Final Fantasy. The Upcoming’s Mark Worgan points to the change in mood near the end, when Babyline follows songs about trying to recover a relationship. The closing title track brings the album back to the idea of letting go.
From Bulletproof to a fourth album
La Roux’s first album arrived in 2009. The Official Charts archive records Bulletproof as a UK number one and In for the Kill as a number two. The self-titled album went on to win the Grammy for Best Electronic/Dance Album in 2011. Trouble in Paradise and Supervision followed before the six-year gap that ends with Old Flames.
Those early hits remain a familiar introduction to La Roux. The new record’s credits show how much of this project Jackson has taken on herself: the same person who shaped the writing and arrangements also produced the tracks. The official UK album listing includes Falling, To Make Our Love, Your Lover and Night Vision among the songs that sit between its opening and closing title pieces.
Where to hear Old Flames live in the UK
The Truman Brewery’s event listing confirms the Rough Trade East performance and signing for Saturday 7 November. The event is tied to the album release, with the ticket package including a physical copy of the record for collection at the shop. The album is also listed separately on CD and vinyl, with cassette editions available through Jackson’s UK store.
The artist’s tour page lists SWG3 in Glasgow on 19 March, Manchester Academy 2 on 20 March, Bristol’s Trinity Centre on 23 March and Electric Brixton in London on 24 March. All four are in 2027, after the North American and continental European dates on the published itinerary. For UK audiences, the immediate release event is the London signing; the March shows are the next chance to hear the album on the road.
