Reverend & The Makers Return with Eighth Album ‘Is This How Happiness Feels’

‘Is This How Happiness Feels’, the eighth studio album from Sheffield’s Reverend & The Makers, is out now. It lands after what frontman Jon McClure calls the most fulfilling stretch of his career. The record follows a deliberate creative pivot that began six years ago, when Brian Eno asked McClure what he was bad at musically. McClure identified his weaknesses and stopped forcing them. Instead, he started working with collaborators who excel in areas he does not, focusing his own energy on what he does well.

That shift has reshaped more than the band’s music. In the same period, McClure launched the daytime disco event Day Fever, manages his brother’s ‘Game’s Gone’ podcast, and oversees Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest football club. An ADHD diagnosis brought further clarity. Rather than trying to do everything alone, he now relies on people who can carry the parts he cannot. The approach has brought renewed attention to Reverend & The Makers and broadened their live audiences. The new album arrives not as a comeback but as the product of someone who learned to stop forcing what he cannot do well.