Detroit alternative rock mainstays Sponge are closing the book on more than three decades of original studio albums. The band has announced Recuerda Tu Muerte — Spanish for “Remember Your Death” — as its final full-length record, due October 2, 2026, on Three One Three.
The album arrives after a long run that began with the gold-certified 1994 debut Rotting Piñata, which sent “Plowed” and “Molly (16 Candles Down the Drain)” onto rock radio and into the mid-’90s alternative conversation. Frontman Vinnie Dombroski has remained the band’s one constant through lineup changes, later records, live albums, a 2024 covers set titled 1994, and last year’s Electric Cattle Gods: The Lost Tracks compilation of early material.
Recuerda Tu Muerte is being billed as the last Sponge studio album. Dombroski has said the songs were already written and demoed, and that he believes fans will like the result — but that the work of assembling another full-length no longer makes the same sense in an era when listeners stream tracks rather than wait for an album cycle. He has left the door open to releasing individual songs. Earlier this year he described the new material as dark, even if he himself was not in a dark place.
Lead single “Self Inflicted Loss” is out now. Stereogum called it bright, shiny churn-crunch; another write-up framed it as an unflinching confessional with a tripped-out, dark groove. The video was made with Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, the Robot Chicken production company.
Self Inflicted Loss
Listen to Self Inflicted Loss on Spotify. Song · Sponge · 2026
The tracklist:
- Beef Relief
- Loose Screw
- Self Inflicted Loss
- Monster
- In Closing
- Stealing Shadows
- Lead Gods
- Clearing All The Vultures Away
- Lost Pilot
- Peckerwood
Sponge will take the record on the road this fall with fellow ’90s veterans Candlebox. For a band that never quite disappeared after the radio peak faded, the farewell album is less a sudden stop than a decision to stop making the same kind of statement. The hits still play. The touring circuit still wants them. The catalog is deep enough that a last studio chapter lands as punctuation rather than an afterthought.
Recuerda Tu Muerte is available for pre-order ahead of the October 2 release.
