The old stories—capes, flags, the comforting lie of the American Way—have now thinned to paper and torn in the rain. What advances now is vicious authoritarianism, propelled by fear, hatred, and momentum rather than purpose; some of what resists falters, worn down by distraction, fatigue, and a misplaced faith in politeness while atrocities loop endlessly through the newsfeed. People don’t stop from confusion but from clarity, from the recognition that no cavalry is coming. Nihilism settles in. Yet the unadvertised truth remains: salvation has changed addresses. It no longer arrives through spectacle, authority, or viral online outrage. It lives in ungloved hands—neighbors sharing resources, bodies gathering in real physical space, people deliberately learning how to move, act, and organize together — and care for one another.
The title says everything before the first note lands. No One Is Coming, the opening signal from ADULT.‘s Kissing Luck Goodbye, moves with a clipped, corrosive urgency: bassline forward, beat off-kilter, feedback bent into something almost tuneful through repetition and pressure. The song speaks plainly about societal collapse, moral rot, political corruption, and the comfort of doing nothing while power dresses itself up and cashes out. Inaction sits here as a shared liability.
The tempo of No One Is Coming arrived by accident: a skipping record caught on a phone during a birthday stay. That stutter became the song’s spine. Its irregular gait mirrors the present moment: systems misfiring, time slipping, urgency breaking through the cracks. Kuperus’ delivery cuts across it with a severity that recalls Diamanda Galás, Lydia Lunch, and the blunt force discipline of Nitzer Ebb and Die Krupps, channeled into something direct and unornamented. Laughter appears throughout the album as a recurring signal, less humor than a stress response, marking the absurdity of living inside a prolonged emergency.
Kuperus frames the song’s purpose without ornament: “While working on this album, I read an article from an esteemed environmental scientist about what’s coming in the future? What stuck with me was their point that we are entering a new phase in existence where the most important thing we can do is know our neighbors and know the strengths of each other, and what resources everyone has. Who needs extra care? Who is on their own? This song was written as a call to arms. Be alert. Be aware. Be prepared. Stand up for yourself and look out for your community. We are better when we are united. Social media is wearing us down. Deluding us. The political landscape is horrifying, distracting, deranged, and unhinged. We are seeing this go down in real time right now in Minneapolis… NO ONE IS COMING TO YOUR RESCUE… except ALL OF US! Keep speaking up! Keep using your right to protest and most importantly keep showing kindness to one another.”
The video for No One Is Coming, assembled from found footage and performance clips, reinforces the song’s blunt thesis. History loops. Bodies remain present. Responsibility circulates outward. ADULT. offer clarity, pressure, and a reminder that collective action is the only answer left standing.
Watch below:
For more than twenty-five years, Detroit’s ADULT. (Nicola Kuperus and Adam Lee Miller) have worked from a place of distrust and friction. Longevity hasn’t softened the message. Kissing Luck Goodbye, their tenth album and fourth for Dais Records, sounds sharpened and confrontational, with Kuperus’ voice placed front and center, spelling out threats, taunts, and rallying cries in hard lines.
Kissing Luck Goodbye was built through fixation. New microphones, upgraded tools, and a swollen archive of samples (thrift-store records, unused fragments from earlier eras, fresh field recordings) were stacked and stressed. Everyday noise was dragged through pedals until it bent into new shapes. Freeze the album at random, and multiple ideas crowd together and collide at once. That density took form alongside producer Nolan Gray, met by chance during a short-term rental stay, a reminder that coincidence still plays a role even when luck feels spent.
By revisiting bass-driven material from the early 2000s, the band tapped into a physical response that felt immediate. Kuperus recalls, “We were in Paris, and the kids were stage diving. And I was like, this is rad. This is kind of the energy I want to get back into.”
That spark arrived amid setbacks—chronic vertigo, technical failures, and the loss of close friend and collaborator Douglas McCarthy (Nitzer Ebb), to whom the album is dedicated. Miller sums up the inertia that followed: “We were stuck in the mud for quite a while after the election. We had all the concepts, but we would just be like, ‘What’s the point?’” Kuperus adds, “We’re just like everything’s breaking. We’re breaking. We’re broken.”
No One Is Coming is out now via Dais Records. Listen to the single below and pre-order Kissing Luck Goodbye here.
ADULT. bring their chaotic show across the states Spring 2026. They’ve announced the official Kissing Luck Goodbye US tour today which hits both coasts, the Midwest and more. See below for all dates. Updates and tickets are available here.
Tour Dates:
- Apr 10: Pittsburgh, PA – Spirit Lodge
- Apr 11: Baltimore, MD – Ottobar
- Apr 12: Brooklyn, NY – Good Room
- Apr 14: Raleigh, NC – Kings
- Apr 15: Atlanta, GA – The Earl
- Apr 16: Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbits
- Apr 17: Orlando, FL – The Social
- Apr 18: Miami, FL – TBD
- Apr 21: New Orleans, LA – Gasa Gasa
- Apr 22: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall (Upstairs)
- Apr 23: Austin, TX 29th – Street Ballroom
- Apr 24: San Antonio, TX – Paper Tiger
- Apr 25: Denton, TX – Rubber Gloves
- Apr 28: Albuquerque, NM – Sister
- Apr 29: Phoenix, AZ – Rebel Lounge
- Apr 30: San Diego, CA – The Casbah
- May 01: Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Forever (Masonic Lodge)
- May 02: San Francisco, CA -t Rickshaw Stop
- May 04: Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
- May 05: Seattle, WA – Barboza
- May 08: Minneapolis, MN – 7th St. Entry
- May 09: Cudahy, WI – X-Ray Arcade
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