Norwich-based Takeda return on 25 September 2026 with “Lion’s Den”—a raw, bruising new single that marks their most visceral release yet. It’s the first taste of the band’s forthcoming second studio album, due in 2027 via Drongo Records.
Since forming in 2022, Takeda have built a sound from deliberate collision: intricate, Bert Jansch–influenced fingerpicking and traditional folk technique slammed up against crushing riffs, fuzz-soaked guitars, and heavy breakdowns. It’s hard to categorise—and that’s the point. The band’s instinct is to swerve away from anything that feels too familiar.
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“When we are arranging songs together, the moment we are able to firmly pin something we are doing to somebody else’s music, we tend to suddenly feel disinterested, and the song usually gets binned,” says vocalist and songwriter Josh Harrison. “We are pretty thirsty to sound like nothing but Takeda.”
That hunger for a singular voice is rooted in lived experience. Harrison’s years spent in a doomsday cult have long shaped his imagery and the emotional DNA of the band’s writing. Where their debut album In Venus’ Train traced the painful act of breaking away, “Lion’s Den” looks beyond the escape itself—staring down the anger, resentment, and sense of manipulation and betrayal that can linger after the door finally closes.
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Produced by David Pye (Shaking Hand, Szun Waves, Trudy & the Romance, Faithless, Dido) and featuring additional vocals from Raya Mhari-Iglesias (Birdwitch), “Lion’s Den” distils that fury into one of Takeda’s most direct, emotionally charged recordings to date.
“I’ve never written a song in anger before,” Harrison explains. “But Lion’s Den came to me slowly and bubbling up in me. Untangling it as I wrote it was like opening the tap on some pressurised anger in me… This song became the release for all of that, and letting it out into the world feels very therapeutic.”
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