Love Fame Tragedy

After 15 years fronting the U.K. rock group the Wombats, Matthew “Murph” Murphy tries his hand at solo work, amassing a clutch of songs under the name Love Fame Tragedy. While sonically similar in nature to his band, Murphy established the work of Love Fame Tragedy as rawer and more confessional. 2020’s Wherever I Go, I Want to Leave and its lead single, “My Cheating Heart,” were inspired by his life after moving to the United States, while his 2024 follow-up, Life Is a Killer, traced his journey away from substance abuse. Murphy formed the Wombats in 2003 with bassist Tord Øverland Knudsen and drummer Dan Haggis, fellow students of the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts. Their 2007 debut A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation (a number 11 hit in the U.K.) and lead single “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” set the tone for the Wombats’ body of work: tightly wound alt-rock with the occasional New Wave flourish. They released their third album, the synth-laden Glitterbug, in 2015, and earned their first entries on the American album chart; its single “Greek Tragedy” became a viral hit in 2021 when it was remixed by Oliver Nelson. While promoting the Wombats’ fourth album, 2018’s Beautiful People Will Ruin Your Life, Murphy revealed he was stockpiling additional material for a separate release, inspired in part by his marriage, his move to America, and other personal matters that he felt didn’t fit with the material created with his band. A year later, having worked with a collective including longtime Wombats producer Mark Crew, Pixies lead guitarist Joey Santiago, and alt-pop producer Dan Nigro (Sky Ferreira, Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan), the seeds of Love Fame Tragedy began to bloom on singles like “My Cheating Heart” and “Backflip,” and the EPs I Don’t Want to Play the Victim, But I’m Really Good at It (2019) and Five Songs to Briefly Fill the Void (2020). Love Fame Tragedy’s debut LP, Wherever I Go, I Want to Leave, arrived in 2020. The Wombats returned with 2022’s Fix Yourself, Not the World, working again with Crew and producer Jacknife Lee. Both producers worked on Love Fame Tragedy’s next album, 2024’s Life Is a Killer. Inspired in part by Murphy’s journey toward sobriety (and featuring emotional voice notes recorded by his wife Akemi Topel throughout), the album featured the singles “Slipping Away” and “Don’t You Want to Sleep with Someone Normal?” — the latter of which entered the Top 40 of Billboard’s alternative airplay charts. ~ Mike Duquette