Kula Shaker have shared an epic new music video for the title track from their new ‘Wormslayer’ album, and revealed how they felt like they were responsible for “breaking up the Britpop party” in the ‘90s.
The band announced last September that they were back with the original line-up – Crispian Mills (vocals/guitar), Alonza Bevan (bass), Paul Winterhart (drums) and Jay Darlington (Organ) – and set to release a new album called ‘Wormslayer’ at the start of 2026.
They shared the first taste of the record with the psychedelic lead single ‘Good Money’, and later followed it up with the adventurous, boundary-pushing title track.
Now, after releasing the album last Friday (January 30), the band have shared an epic short film to accompany title track, which features family members and draws inspiration from their love of fantasy table-top gaming.
Starring Mills’ teenage children and their friends, the video sees them shift to another dimension when their Dungeon Master (Darlington) sends them into the tabletop game to slay the mythical worm.
The video adds to the growing number of film projects helmed by Mills, including feature films A Fantastic Fear of Everything which starred Simon Pegg, and Slaughterhouse Rulez which featured Nick Frost and Margot Robbie.
“Whether it was reading the Mahabharata or enjoying Excalibur and Lord
of the Rings, this band has always been about the ‘quest’,” the frontman explained. “When we recorded the nine-minute title track for ‘Wormslayer’ we felt it deserved an epic cinematic quest to do it justice.
“I hired my kids, and their mates, who are all in bands, and went berserk with Laurie, creating an epic video featuring live action and role play games, in an homage to Japanese anime-style action,” he added. “Like many, I grew up with Dungeons & Dragons […so] what we ended up with is Goonies, Scooby Doo, Stranger Things, Lord of the Rings, He-
Man and Dungeons & Dragons rolled into one — all our fave pop-culture quests.”
Since its release last week, the new album has proven to be a favourite among fans, and is already charting high in the midweek charts. Currently, the LP is sitting at Number Five in the UK Albums Charts – making it Kula Shaker’s best-performing release since their 1990s breakthrough.
First released back in September 1996, the band’s debut album ‘K’ proved to be a huge hit, and was later confirmed as the fastest-selling British debut since Oasis’ ‘Definitely Maybe’. It went on to top the UK charts when it was first released thanks to standout singles like ‘Hey Dude’ and ‘Tattva’, and sold over 105,000 copies in the first week alone.
Looking back at the impact that the album had on the UK’s music scene, Kula Shaker recently spoke to Dan O’Connell on the Radio X’s Evening Show, and looked back at how they fit into the Britpop movement of the ‘90s.
The topic arose when the host highlighted how their music had more “spiritual, mystical, mythical [and] esoteric” themes than a lot of their peers at the time, and asked if the band intended to tackle something “deeper” than the “sex, drugs, rock and roll” approach of bands like Oasis and Blur.
“Well, we didn’t disagree with the whole thing,” said Mills, going on to say that Kula Shaker did always have a more spiritual outlook from the start.
“It was just that, you are going to live forever. You are… but not necessarily in this body, you know? So [we wanted to] get real about what it is to be a living creature. What does it actually mean?”
“I think music is spiritual,” he added. “Rock and roll comes from the church, so we never really thought that there was a difference. It’s all part of the same experience.
“And yeah, I think we did sort of slightly break up the brick pop party a bit, but it needed to evolve.”
Kula Shaker recently completed an acoustic and signing record store tour, and are set to kick off a new headline tour celebrating the ‘Wormslayer’ album later this week. The tour will see them perform across the UK and Europe, and will be illuminated by the ‘The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show’.
Shows kick off on Friday (February 7) with an opening night at the Concord 2 in Brighton, and continue with shows in Glasgow, London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin and more throughout the next four weeks. Visit here for UK tickets and here for European tickets.
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