Triggerfinger are back with ‘Tarmac’, their sixth studio album and their first in ten years.

Written and recorded between Antwerp and Los Angeles, the album was made by Ruben Block and Mario Goossens with help from Mitchell Froom. It follows ‘Colossus’, released back in 2016, and comes after a long period in which the members largely went their separate ways.

There was good reason for the break. Goossens formed SLOPER with Golden Earring drummer Cesar Zuiderwijk and made two albums, while Block released his solo record ‘Looking to Glide’ in 2022. Paul left Triggerfinger in 2023, and the band’s final club show with him at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels was later issued as ‘Faders Up 3 Live in Brussels’. He died in October 2025 after a long period of ill health.

‘Tarmac’, then, arrives after quite a lot has changed.

Triggerfinger now centre on Block and Goossens, with Geoffrey Burton, whose credits include Grace Jones and Iggy Pop, joining them on guitar for the live shows.

The new record does not spend too much time looking backwards. There is still plenty of guitar in it, naturally, but some of the arrangements are leaner than you might expect, with synth bass, clipped rhythms and the odd bit of funk turning up alongside the heavier stuff.

Mitchell Froom’s involvement makes sense here. The album has enough rough edges left in place to stop it becoming too polished, and there are moments when Triggerfinger sound more interested in the shape of the song than simply making everything bigger.

That said, they have always been a live band at heart.

Their reputation was built over years of touring Europe and Canada, beginning with the self-titled debut in 2004 and ‘What Grabs Ya’ four years later. ‘All This Dancing Around’ widened their audience in 2010, and their stripped-back version of Lykke Li’s ‘I Follow Rivers’ became an unexpected European hit in 2012. Along the way they shared stages with Thin Lizzy, Within Temptation, Placebo, Muse and The Rolling Stones.

Ten years away from the studio has not changed that part of the band very much. Block and Goossens clearly want to be out playing these songs rather than treating ‘Tarmac’ as some grand comeback statement.

The album runs to eleven tracks, opening with ‘Everybody’s Looking’ and moving through ‘Stars’, ‘Until The Scandal Breaks’, ‘Come Clean’, ‘On My Back’, ‘Through The Beam’, ‘No Trouble’, ‘The Why’, ‘Geronimo’, ‘Ring It’ and ‘Shine And Shimmer’.