La Dispute Are Back With ‘No One Was Driving The Car,’ Their First Album In Six Years

Paul Schrader’s First Reformed is more than just a fantastic film. The movie, which stars Ethan Hawke as a reverend in the midst of an existential crisis of faith, also inspired the new album from La Dispute.

No One Was Driving The Car is the lyrically-dense group’s first album in six years, and it “grapples with malaise in the shadow of the looming apocalypse, which has noticeably been worsened by the advancement of tech.”

Here’s what vocalist Jordan Dreyer said about the album:

It begins with a man examining his own slow dissociation from himself while shaving his head alone in a bathroom at night, then shifts through a neighbor’s open window to a conversation about control and desire, framed via the image of a man seen through it: bound on the floor with a woman standing before him, presumably a sex worker. when the woman exits the building (her companion still tied up), the narrator leaves his own, following less her than the idea represented by her inside his own struggle to reconnect to desires for life severed by time, self, and circumstance, or perhaps fleeing the implication he draws from the man left behind (his helplessness, maybe, or else his confidence to pursue something complicated where the narrator has so consistently failed). the third song follows him on that destination-less late night walk, among the street people and their disasters, ending where he had the whole night subconsciously always headed: the hospital where\ his partner works, at which point an internal reckoning occurs.

You can listen to new song “I Shaved My Head” above, and check out the No One Was Driving The Car album cover and tracklist and La Dispute’s upcoming tour dates below.

La Dispute’s No One Was Driving The Car Album Cover Artwork

La Dispute’s No One Was Driving The Car Tracklist

1. “I Shaved My Head”
2. “Man With Hands And Ankles Bound”
3. “Autofiction Detail”
4. “Environmental Catastrophe Film”
5. “Self-Portrait Backwards”
6. “The Field”
7. “Sibling Fistfight At Mom’s Fiftieth / The Un-Sound”
8. “Landlord Calls The Sheriff In”
9. “Steve”
10. “Top-Sellers Banquet”
11. “Saturation Diver”
12. “I Dreamt Of A Room With All My Friends”
13. “No One Was Driving The Car”
14. “End Times Sermon”

La Dispute’s 2025 Tour Dates: The No One Was Driving The Car Tour

07/10 — Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
07/11 — Cheltenham, UK @ 2000 Trees Festival
07/12 — Cheltenham, UK @ 2000 Trees Festival
07/14 — Hannover, DE @ MusikZentrum
07/15 — Nürnberg, DE @ Hirsch
07/16 — Karlsruhe, DE @ Substage
07/18 — Cologne, DE @ Open Stage Suedbruecke (w/ Enter Shikari)
07/19 — Herk-de-Stad, BE @ Rock Herk Festival
07/20 — Cuxhaven, DE @ Deichbrand Festival
09/05 — Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall
09/06 — Toronto, ON @ Phoenix Concert Theatre
09/07 — Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop
09/08 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit Hall
09/10 — Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
09/11 — Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
09/12 — Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
09/13 — Washington, DC @ Howard Theater
09/14 — Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
09/16 — Orlando, FL @ The Beacham
09/17 — Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
09/18 — Nashville, TN @ Basement East
09/19 — Columbus, OH @ King of Clubs
09/20 — Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe at Old National Centre

No One Was Driving The Car via 9/5 via Epitaph. Find more information here.