“Don’t Speak” — a powerful, anthemic debut album packed with sharp, catchy alt-rock — finds Culture Wars moving into a high-octane, arena-ready sound. The record follows a breakout year that saw the Texas-raised, LA-based band opening for Maroon 5, Keane, Wallows, and LANY, gaining an international audience and a reputation for energetic, engaging live performances. Originally put together with a different title and tracklist, “Don’t Speak” is an album reshaped by the band’s experiences on tour. Guitarist and producer Caleb Contreras said the band reworked significant portions after performing the material live, while lead singer Alex Dugan described touring as a testing ground for new ideas.
“When we sat down to put together the opening setlist, it was clear we didn’t want to work in the second half of the album,” Dugan said. “And when we were playing live, we saw what didn’t land.” “There was a moment after we had just gotten off stage,” Contreras said. “I remember Alex and I looked over at each other and we were like, ‘Nah, we gotta write more songs. We’re not done yet.’”
According to Dugan, advice from another band reinforced this idea. “Maroon 5 was talking to us, and those guys were like, ‘we toured our first album for three years,’” Dugan said. “And we were like, ‘yeah, okay, fuck that. We really need to do something now, because I don’t want to tour some of these songs for three years.’”
Culture Wars describes themselves as a band in a constant state of evolution. Since the release of their first EP in 2021, the band has spent years developing their sound into something authentic and fully realized. “In the production process, Teche was much more synthesized,” Contreras said. “But working on the new album, I started to realize that these songs were resistant to being overproduced. The songs themselves wanted to be as organic as possible.” “The band has evolved and changed a lot of things since then,” Dugan said. “We’ve gotten a lot more intentional about how we create songs.”
From lyrics to production, this purposeful approach extends to every element of the album. “The thing about this band is that we’re so DIY,” Contreras said. “I mixed the record. I produced the record. We wrote it all together. We very much are an in-house unit. It’s really what makes the album sound like a cohesive world.”
“David [the band’s drummer] and Caleb will sit there and work on the snare sound for who-knows-how-fucking-long in a way that no one else would tolerate,” Dugan said. “It enabled us to be very specific and intentional about every little thing in a really cool way. It is very much a DIY ethos, and I don’t know if our sound would exist if we did it in any other way.”
The result is a focused, high-impact record balancing clean, polished production with raw, alternative sound — anchored by Dugan pushing his vocal range higher than ever before, something he admits made some of the songs “a pain in the ass to sing.” One breakout hit is “Typical Ways,” a high-energy cut described by Dugan as “an angry letter to my former self.” His soaring vocals also shine on “Heaven,” a brighter, more melodic pop-rock track, and “Slowly,” a wistful indie-rock contemplation in the aftermath of a breakup. Other highlights include “Bittersweet,” a song full of emotional contrast driven by infectious riffs and smooth vocals; “In the Morning,” a vulnerable, introspective alt-rock cut; and “Miley,” a riff-heavy groove. The record also revisits “Lies” — a track originally released on a previous EP, now revamped to reflect the band’s evolution. “We didn’t do it right the first time,” Dugan said. “I just thought, we’ve gotten so much better at recording and being a band, why don’t we try to do this song but the way we’re doing things now? In my opinion, that song really deserved to stick it out.”
From the nostalgically 2000s-tinged “It Hurts” and “Wasting My Time” to the dreamy, indie-rock “(Tokyo)” and “cortisol, it’s not always what’s in your head” to the resonant title track “Don’t Speak,” the latest album from Culture Wars builds a cohesive and dynamic alt-rock catalogue that allows the band to step into its full power. The record is practically built for big stages with songs arena-tested, refined in front of crowds, and shaped by audience response.
“The reception to the album has been great,” Dugan said. “But it’s interesting because we rewrote the record partially based on audience feedback, so the feedback drove what the album became. It’s this weird, cool, symbiotic call and response.”
Now, Culture Wars are gearing up for their next chapter: An international headline tour rolling out in 2026. “This is gonna be the first tour that we do of this size where it’s all us, and all people that know the lyrics and fuck with the music,” Contreras said. “And our heart and soul are very much into this, so when people fuck with this, they’re essentially fucking with us. And that’s a new thing that’s gonna be cool to experience.”
“We’ve gone from no one giving a flying fuck to maybe, hopefully, having a career. It’s all new,” Dugan said. “David, our drummer, still thinks it’s not real.”
