Into The Music
Thirty years is a long time to wait. But Sublime, or at least the people still breathing who made Sublime what it was, announced this week that a new album is coming. Until the Sun Explodes drops June 12 on Atlantic Records, and it is the first full-length studio album from the band since their self-titled 1996 record.
That 1996 album came out two months after Bradley Nowell died. The band never released another studio record after that, and for decades, they did not need to. The catalog was enough. Songs like “What I Got,” “Santeria,” and “Wrong Way” became permanent fixtures of a certain American summer, and no amount of calendar time seemed capable of dating them.
What is different now is that Jakob Nowell, Bradley’s son, is fronting the band. He is joined by original members Bud Gaugh on drums and Eric Wilson on bass, the same rhythm section that underpinned everything the band ever did. By all accounts, the sound stays close to the Sublime template: reggae-influenced California rock with ska edges and a looseness that always felt more like a vibe than a genre.
The collaborators on the 21-track record are notable. Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise, H.R. of Bad Brains, G. Love, Skegss, and FIDLAR all appear, which gives the project a convincing sense of scene rather than nostalgia tourism. These are not legacy acts lending credibility. These are people who actually live in and around this music.
Jakob Nowell has described the album as an “epilogue” and a tribute to his father’s work. That framing is honest, and maybe a little brave. He is not pretending this is something other than what it is. He grew up inside this legacy and is now stepping into it publicly, carrying a name and a sound that millions of people already have strong feelings about.
Bud Gaugh, for his part, says the album conveys gratitude and future intent. Eric Wilson thinks it will “set the tone for the summer of 2026.” That last quote is either wildly optimistic or simply correct. Depending on what the actual record sounds like when it arrives, either interpretation is possible.
The lead single, also titled “Until the Sun Explodes,” is out now with a music video. It is worth a listen before forming strong opinions in either direction. What is clear so far is that the band is not trying to embarrass the catalog. Whether a 2026 Sublime can actually stand next to the 1996 version is a question only the record itself can answer.
The announcement has already generated the predictable range of responses: people who think this is a beautiful way to honor Bradley Nowell, people who think no one should touch the band name, and people who are simply curious about what Jakob Nowell sounds like when given a full platform. All three positions are reasonable. The music will sort it out.
Until the Sun Explodes arrives June 12.
The real question here is whether Jakob Nowell can carry the lyrical weight that made Bradley so distinct. Sublime wasn’t just reggae-punk , it was street poetry that happened to have a bounce to it. Bradley could deliver a line like it was both a joke and a confession at the same time. That’s not genetic. That’s earned. I want to see what Jakob has actually written before I form an opinion on this.
Thirty years is indeed a long time, and I say that as someone who watched Sublime from a great distance , from Accra in the nineties, their music arrived to us as something wild and American, full of energy we did not entirely have context for but felt immediately. The fact that the band has chosen to move forward with Jakob rather than simply archive the past speaks well of them. Legacy is complicated. Sometimes the most respectful thing is to keep walking in the direction the original voice was headed, even if you are carrying it in a different set of hands.
There is something philosophically rich in the idea that a band can continue across such a rupture , that Sublime exists both as a moment frozen in 1996 and as a living project in 2026. In Senegalese griot tradition, the voice is the vessel and also the lineage. When a griot passes, it is the son or the apprentice who carries the songs forward, and no one asks whether the tradition is “authentic” , it simply continues or it does not. Perhaps we should extend the same generosity to Sublime. The question is not whether this is really Sublime. The question is whether the music is alive.