Sheffield’s most theatrical rock outfit spent eight days in an isolated ranch watching horror films, narrowly avoiding possession, and making one of the most atmospheric debut albums of last year. Now, they’re finally ready to let it loose.
Words by Felix Bartlett | April 13, 2026
There’s a moment in Macbeth where a hallucinated dagger floats through the air, conjured entirely by guilt and spiralling emotion. It’s that image, that visceral, uncontrollable outpouring of feeling, that Sheffield rock outfit Air Drawn Dagger built their entire identity around. “It’s like a characterisation of an emotional outburst,” explains guitarist Lewis. “Not really trying to sound like this band or that band. It’s just a nice umbrella term for a physical kind of force, which felt like a nice way to describe what we were making.”
It’s the kind of intentionality that runs through everything Air Drawn Dagger do. From the name itself to the theatrics of their live shows, this is a band that thinks deeply about the world they’re constructing around their music. Their debut album arrived in April 2025 via Long Branch Records, preceded by a sold-out headline slot at Sheffield’s legendary Leadmill, where the band pulled out all the stops, Grecian statues included, for a show tied to their EP release. The scale of ambition was obvious long before the record dropped.
“That was a dream come true,” says Lewis of the Leadmill show. “We just keep trying to clinch above our weight class. And so far, so good.”
That weight class climbed again when they sold out Sheffield’s Cooperation for the album release. But for a band who thrive on atmosphere and spectacle, the real test has always been about more than the size of the room. It’s about what you fill it with.
That atmosphere was forged, quite literally, in the dark. When Air Drawn Dagger headed to a rural ranch to record the album with producer Neil Kennedy, known for his work shaping debut records for the likes of Creeper and Boston Manor, the setting had other ideas. Power cuts. Animal carcasses. A palpable sense that something wasn’t quite right.
“Possession was imminent, really,” Lewis says, only half-joking. “At any given moment, it could have gone very differently.”
Vocalist Maisie fills in the gaps: “We didn’t see anybody else for about eight days. We just stayed in the middle of nowhere, watched horror movies and recorded music. We probably lost our minds a little bit.”
The horror movie marathon included Blair Witch and a slightly more unexpected choice. “We watched Twilight,” Lewis admits, with the kind of deadpan delivery that suggests he’s still processing it. “Both of us. I haven’t seen it for so long.” Maisie is unrepentant: “We had to watch Twilight. The second one as well.”
It’s a funny image, a band steeped in gothic, theatrical rock, huddled around a screen in the middle of nowhere watching Bella Swan navigate supernatural romance. But it also speaks to something real about how the album came together. Isolated, unfiltered, and letting the strangeness of the environment seep into the music.
Back in Sheffield, Lewis and Maisie are calling from their studio. There’s a band rehearsing somewhere upstairs, which goes some way to explaining the slightly chaotic start to our conversation. It feels fitting, somehow. Air Drawn Dagger are a band that operate best in the middle of something happening.
They describe their songwriting as a kind of Frankenstein process, pieces assembled and passed between each other until something whole emerges. “We never really start with bare bones,” Lewis explains, before he and Maisie descend into a genuinely delightful argument about whether the right metaphor is flesh and bones, seeds, or small plants. “Frankenstein songs together,” he eventually lands on. “Yeah. We found it.”
It’s that collaborative energy, spontaneous and a little chaotic, that gives their music its pulse. And it’s what makes the upcoming Blondie’s show feel so significant.
A year on from the debut’s release, Air Drawn Dagger are heading to London’s Blondie’s for what amounts to a farewell to the record in its current form. With a rebrand and new album on the horizon later this year, this is the last chance to hear the debut played in full, including tracks that never made it into previous sets. It’s being treated as a proper send-off.
“We’re going to use this as a good opportunity to purge the spirits of the debut album,” Lewis says. “Give everything its time. In a sense.”
Maisie puts it more simply: “It feels nice to finally let them have a real place to exist in the world.”
The songs they’re most excited to play reflect the range of the record. Necromancer carries that theatrical weight the band have built their reputation on, while Sweating, played in a small, sweat-soaked London venue, has an almost poetic logic to it. “Playing a song called Sweating in a sweaty venue just makes sense,” Lewis says. “I love it.”
Como is another one he’s watching closely. “It kicks in immediately. We’re going to see how they react.”
It’s that unpredictability that Air Drawn Dagger seem to relish most. When asked what fans can expect from the night, Lewis is almost philosophical about it. “We won’t be able to recreate that night again. That feels really special. You were there for it. We were there for it. It’s a limited, special time you get to spend together with people. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He pauses, and then says: “It’s a surprise to us as well. Let’s find out together.”
Beyond Blondie’s, there’s the sense that Air Drawn Dagger are only just getting started. New music is already on the horizon, with Lewis promising it will arrive “sooner rather than later.” The theatrical world they’ve been building, tied into concept albums, lore-driven visuals and live shows that function more like events than gigs, is still expanding. Whether that’s an evolution or, as Maisie puts it, “a complete morph into something else,” is yet to be seen.
What’s clear is that this is a band with a very specific vision of who they are and where they’re going. The air-drawn dagger, that impossible, floating thing conjured from emotion and imagination, is still very much in hand.
“It feels very natural for us,” Maisie says. “This is just what we do.”
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