Jigsaw Causeway, the upcoming album by Novelty Island, is about hopelessness. In it, the speaker fantasises not about success, love or happiness, but an escape from the modern world.

By Stanley West

I cannot myself think of a day where I haven’t wanted to “throw my phone into the sea,” and I doubt there are many of us who can. The album further expresses hopelessness with the second track, which talks of “turning off and on again” which is “not gonna help at all,” again fantasising about escape, or a kind of reset, but one which ultimately doesn’t work.

Despite this, the album is not without its optimism. In the song Floating, probably the strongest on the album, the singer says he is “trapped with all my friends” and the final track promises “we’ll float away together.” The album seems to suggest the only hope we can find is with each other.

Musically, the album could be considered psychedelic and will be popular with fans of The Verve. It could potentially benefit from more stripped back instrumentation, though, especially as lyrically this could be considered a folk record. In terms of the jigsaw causeway itself, the point of the album is that there isn’t one – there is not a place where everything fits together like a jigsaw. We should give up on trying to find this jigsaw causeway and choose to live with each other instead.

Novelty Island is led by Liverpool-based songwriter and producer, Tom McConnell who describes it as “Paul McCartney having an argument with Bernard Black”. They have received acclaim from Mojo, Shindig, BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing and Absolute Radio, toured the UK extensively and have and performed at Glastonbury.

Jigsaw Causeway is set for release 3 October 2025, available to pre-order as a digital download, or on vinyl, CD or cassette via Bandcamp.

Novelty Island comes to Hyde Park Book Club in Leeds on 4 December 2025. Tickets are available here.