Breakout Alternative Duo Balu Brigada Ask "What Do We Ever Really Know"

Acclaimed alternative pop duo Balu Brigada have shared their latest release, “What Do We Ever Really Know?,” available now via Atlantic Records/ARRO Records/Warner Australia HERE. The song is also joined by an official video available today on YouTube HERE. The new anthem heralds the band’s highly anticipated full-length debut album, Portal, arriving everywhere on Friday, August 29. Pre-orders/pre-saves are available now HERE.‍

“‘What Do We Ever Really Know?’ is an existential crisis, peppered with a euphoric appreciation of the present” said Balu Brigada. “Feeling the weight of existence and all the intensities that come with ambition, but finding the sweet spot that lets you release all the tension and live in the reality that no one knows anything, and we’re all just idiots on a spinning rock, doing our bestest.”

Recently named among SiriusXM’s 2025 “Future Five” as well as Amazon Music’s “Breakthrough: Artists To Watch 2025,” Balu Brigada – brothers, co-vocalists, co-writers, and co-producers Henry and Pierre Beasely – spent three years creating Portal in studios around the world, spanning their native New Zealand to New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, and beyond. Each location left its imprint on the music, yielding “heavier and grungier energy” for the NYC recordings and “a softer and calmer” vibe for the NZ material. Living out of suitcases between sessions and tours, the brothers wholly devoted themselves to pushing the envelope musically, writing and producing every note themselves. By challenging one another, they bottled the tension, vulnerability, and understanding between them into the music, delivering an honest and cathartic aural odyssey that teeters on an axis of otherworldly escapism and personal experience. While the melodies of Portal may resound to the heavens, its emotion is irrefutably grounded and utterly relatable.‍

Portal was first announced earlier this summer with the release of  “Backseat,” available now HERE, already seeing over 11M global streams to date, climbing the US Alternative Airplay chart where it sits at #24, reaching #19 on the NZ Hot Singles Chart, and garnering international airplay across stations. Clocking in at over six minutes, the ambitious epic showcases the scope of Balu Brigada’s intricate, infectious, and inimitable vision, blurring the lines between experimental energy, and arena-size rock.

“So Cold” - the first single from the Portal album - has risen to prove Balu Brigada’s biggest success to date with over 49M worldwide streams and counting. This spring saw the track named Billboard’s “Chartbreaker” for the month of April, joined by a feature interview which praised the “spiky, slinky and above all Strokes-y single (which) reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart in March — a ranking more often dominated by legacy acts than a breakout outfit like Balu Brigada.” “So Cold” – which further earned prestigious inclusion on EA Sports FC 25 soundtrack – is joined by an official music video currently boasting close to 3M views HERE. Balu Brigada further marked their popular breakout by making a seismic late-night TV debut with a showstopping performance of “So Cold” on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, streaming HERE.

Balu Brigada will celebrate Portal on their biggest North American headline run to date. The Portal Tour gets underway October 3 with a SOLD OUT show at Mexico City, MX’s Foro Puebla and then travels the continent through mid-November. Highlights include shows at such iconic venues as Los Angeles, CA’s The Fonda Theatre (October 9), Seattle, WA’s The Crocodile (October 14), Chicago, IL’s Thalia Hall (October 22), Detroit, MI’s El Club (October 24), Montreal, QC’s Théâtre Fairmount (October 27), New York City’s Webster Hall (October 30), Washington, DC’s 9:30 Club (November 1), and Austin, TX’s Mohawk (November 15). Tickets for all announced dates are on sale now. For complete details, please visit www.balu-brigada.com/tour.

Hailed by i-D as “an actual band of brothers making tunes stacked with hooks that’ll run circles around your brain for days,” Balu Brigada craft multi-dimensional alternative pop layered with levels of lush live instrumentation, cinematic production, and festival-ready hooks. Based in Auckland, NZ, brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley honed their distinctive sonic approach through high school before landing a deal with Warner Music Australia, Atlantic Music Group, and ARRO Records. 2022’s debut EP, I Should Be Home quickly garnered Balu Brigada and global critical acclaim for their signature blend of irresistible hooks and introspective lyricism. 2023’s Find A Way kept the momentum going, amassing more than 26M worldwide streams on the strength of the top 10 viral smash, “Designer.” Along the way, Balu Brigada received applause from such outlets as Rolling Stone, Ones To Watch, and PEOPLE, the latter of which named the band to its “Talented Emerging Artists Making Their Mark” list, praising their “soaring falsetto choruses, synth hooks and an irresistible, underlying groove.” Summer 2024 saw Balu Brigada handpicked by Twenty One Pilots to join them on the North American, EU/UK, Latin America, and AU/NZ legs of their hugely successful Clancy World Tour, an epic arena run that saw the band winning over new fans with each sold-out show. Now, with the long anticipated opening of Portal, Balu Brigada elevate to a new stratosphere on what has already been an exhilarating adventure of musical discovery.‍

Balu Brigada The Portal Tour 2025:

Tickets and info at www.balu-brigada.com/tour

OCTOBER

3 – Mexico City, MX – Foro Puebla [SOLD OUT]
4 – Guadalajara, MX – C4 Concert House
6 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
7 – San Diego, CA – Music Box
9 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre
10 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent
10 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent [SOLD OUT]
12 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
14 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
15 – Vancouver, BC – The Pearl
17 – Boise, ID – Neurolox
18 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Grand at the Complex
20 – Denver, CO – Summit
22 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
23 – Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
24 – Detroit, MI – El Club
25 – Toronto, ON – Concert Hall
27 – Montreal, QC – Théâtre Fairmount
28 – Boston, MA – Royale
30 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
31 – Philadelphia, PA – The Foundry at the Fillmore

NOVEMBER

1 – Washington DC – 9:30 Club
3 – Asheville, NC – The Grey Eagle
4 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
6 – Jacksonville, FL – FIVE
7 – Orlando, FL – The Plaza Live
8 – Tampa, FL – Janus Live
9 – Miami, FL – Zeyzey Miami
13 – Dallas, TX – Studio at The Bomb Factory
14 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
15 – Austin, TX – Mohawk

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