These Killing Times

These Killing Times is Emma Ruth Rundle's sixth studio album, released September 18, 2026 on her own imprint Errant Child and produced by Sonny Diperri, who has also worked with My Bloody Valentine and Trent Reznor^[1]. Where her previous record, Engine of Hell, stripped things down to voice and a handful of instruments, this one returns to a full band built around drummer Jess Gowrie and bassist Troy Zeigler. The eight songs, Powerless, God's Picture, Anvil, Catherine Wheel, Don't Delay Heaven, Enough, Human Kindness, and Oceans of Time, draw on additional players including saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, violinist Camille Getz, cellist Jason Adams, and guitarists Nick Reinhart and Gina Gleason^[6].

Rundle has described the record as her most overtly political to date, telling one interviewer flatly that it is meant to be an anti-fascist record at its core, built around anger at the rise of far-right movements and the deepening climate emergency^[2]. She has said her attention was pulled outward by an onslaught of news that could no longer be ignored, including witnessing the effects of catastrophic wildfire firsthand, which made private, inward songwriting feel like an inadequate response^[4].

That anger takes specific shape across the tracklist: opener "Powerless" grew out of Rundle's frustration with a public figure she felt had compromised his own moral authority, while "Enough" reworks a biblical narrative to confront the accumulation of billionaire wealth^[5][7]. The album closes on "Oceans of Time," also referred to by the title "What Should We Live For," ending the record on an open question about purpose rather than a resolution^[1].

Despite the anger, Rundle has been explicit that hope was a deliberate ingredient rather than an afterthought, saying she needs hope herself to keep working. She built the album's collaborative recording process, drawing in a wide circle of musicians, as a direct answer to the isolation the subject matter could otherwise produce^[3][2].