Release Date: May 15, 2026

Available to pre-order at a reduced early bird price for a limited time only, as a thank you to those who have supported the band thus far.

The follow-up to their show-stopping UK Top 20 album ‘Promised Land’, The Karma Effect arrive with their third record, 'Cruel Intentions’ — the most complete, crystal-clear realisation of their ambitions yet: leaner, louder, heavier, and joyously larger-than-life.

Exploring love, lust, and danger with dark passion and flashes of cheekiness, the songs balance swagger and wit. The band’s modus operandi is “modern vintage”, a desire to polish up the retro sounds they were raised on into a gleaming, modern product.

Although some line-up changes occurred in the background (which sees Nathan Keevil join them on bass, Alan Taylor on drums, and Tom Pitt on keys), a turn of events that could have left them on shaky ground has instead been spun into a silver lining. Brimming with energy and fresh perspectives, the newly assembled line-up convened at The Hive Rooms, in the locale of Gatwick Airport, to nail down what would become ‘Cruel Intentions’ in July 2025. 

 “We holed up in there, locked the doors and didn’t come out for a month,” Henry jests. “I didn’t see the sun that summer at all.” He had brought his new colleagues sketches of the album’s songs, and although their backbones largely remained as he had written them, they were sculpted by the hands of everyone in the band, making it, first and foremost, a collaborative effort capturing shards of everyone’s style and personality.

There are different shades to their sound on this outing. Henry’s songwriting leans towards the observational more than the personal. This time, there’s a dark passion coursing through these songs, preoccupied with notions of love, lust and the thrumming sense of danger in both.

Take the swaggering ‘Dangerous Love’ – “It’s about doing things you shouldn’t do, but you can’t stop yourself: passion overtaking your senses and your mind getting away from you.” The title track, meanwhile, is about a stalker. It’s not entirely steeped in darkness, however – sometimes, there are flashes of cheekiness. ‘Better Luck Next Time’, for example, is a tongue-in-cheek meditation on feeling the sharp end of sod’s law, following someone’s day as it spirals into the stuff of farce. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Henry reasons. “We know what we are in terms of the kind of music we play.”

Henry terms the band’s modus operandi “modern vintage”, a desire to polish up the retro sounds they were raised on into a gleaming, modern product instead of trying to rehash or recycle them, and certainly without falling into the trap of pastiche. Regardless, their sights are set higher, and in possession of what they believe are their strongest songs yet, they’re hungrier to chase their goals than ever.

Track Listing:

1. Ride or Die
2. Dangerous Love
3. Lady Bohemian
4. Raised on Rock 'n' Roll
5. Bad Manners
6. Closest Thing To Crazy
7. Waiting on a Miracle
8. Better Luck Next Time
9. Long Gone
10. Cruel Intentions
11. One More for the Road