After more than a decade of soaring choruses, intimate ballads and songs built to hit straight at the heart, Kodaline bring their story to a close with We Were Only Young, the Irish band's fifth and final studio album. Written entirely by frontman Steve Garrigan, a first for the group, the record looks back on everything that comes with growing older: love, loss, friendship, uncertainty and realizing just how much life can change while you're busy living it.

Those themes run throughout the 12-song album. The title track is a sweeping piano ballad about looking back on better times and understanding their importance only after they've passed. “Without You” is even more personal, written by Garrigan for his wife for their wedding day, where it served as both his speech and their first dance.

Musically, We Were Only Young covers plenty of ground while remaining unmistakably Kodaline. “All I Ever Need Is You” leans into acoustic textures, “Learn To Lose” pairs piano with gospel touches, and “It's Not Over” goes for the band's big-hearted pop side. “Get Me High” is propelled by vocal harmonies, while “Vultures” brings a folk bounce to the mix. The album begins with the brooding “Who Will Save You Now” and ends with “The One For Me,” giving the record a fitting sense of arrival and departure.

For Garrigan, the songs grew out of a four-year period that included marriage, loss and questions about his own future as a songwriter, as well as the approaching end of Kodaline itself. That gives We Were Only Young an unusually personal weight as Steve Garrigan, Vinny May, Jason Boland and Mark Prendergast prepare to say goodbye after a career that began in Dublin and grew to include chart-topping albums, multi-platinum sales and billions of streams around the world.

The album’s vinyl edition follows a week later on October 9, as Kodaline prepare to say goodbye with their 2026 Farewell World Tour.