Richard Thompson will release his 20th solo studio album, Hippies, Thugs, and Heroes, on 16 October via New West Records, with a lead single and tour dates announced alongside it.

The lead single, "Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking," is out now. Pitchfork, which reported the announcement, describes the track as "a raucous bar-rock ditty" (Pitchfork).

The album follows Ship to Shore, released in 2024, and runs to 12 songs. The full tracklist includes "Sorcerer's Apprentice," "Cocaine Walking, Booze Talking," "Pauper's Grave," "Unsung Hero," "Make Believe You Don't Know Me," "She Burns It All," "Everybody's Stealing," "The Soul In Me," "Pipe Dreams," "The Big Smoke," "Stringer," and "Siren" (Pitchfork).

In a press statement, Thompson said he demoed the album at home and bought a drum kit so he could present more complete arrangements to his band before they recorded (Pitchfork). It is a working detail, not a gimmick: a songwriter who has been making records since the late 1960s, when he co-founded Fairport Convention, choosing to add another instrument to his demo process two decades into a solo career.

The album announcement was accompanied by a set of tour dates, though specific venues and cities were listed by folking.com alongside the release news (Folking).

Hippies, Thugs, and Heroes is available on vinyl and is categorised under the folk genre by Rough Trade, which has opened pre-orders (Rough Trade). That genre tag fits a songwriter whose catalogue has moved between electric rock, acoustic folk and everything between for the better part of six decades — though a single described as bar-rock suggests the new record will not sit neatly in one drawer.

For listeners, the takeaway is straightforward: new music from a prolific and long-established artist, arriving in October, with live dates to follow. The drum kit in the home demos is the kind of detail that tells you the recording process was hands-on from the start, but the record itself will speak when it arrives.