If you had the Sneaker Pimps on heavy rotation in the late '90s, pay attention: Ian Pickering — co-author of "Spin Spin Sugar," "6 Underground," and "Tesko Suicide" — is back with a new album under his project The Noise Who Runs, and it's one of the more urgent records you'll hear this year.

Re: GenX drops May 8 via TNWR Records, and it arrives as a reckoning. Now based in Lille, France, Pickering frames the album as a reply to his own generation — what it stood for, what it stayed silent for. Framing systemic greed, perpetual warfare, and the erosion of human dignity as the foundational mechanics of a world engineered for its own ruin, the album asks a hard question: what happened to a generation defined by scepticism and freedom that got comfortable watching those gains get dismantled?

"This album is a reply to my own generation — what it stood for, what it stayed silent for, and how it enjoyed progress and liberty without doing much to protect any of it when it actually mattered," says Pickering. "But it's beyond generations, it's humanity, society — it's a class war, always has been."

For fans of IDLES, Death In Vegas, The Fall, Ian Brown, LCD Soundsystem, and UNKLE. Previews include "Just The English Way," "Commercial Road," and "The Bodies Are Under The Bus Again" — each a sharp-edged piece of alternative electronic commentary.

The record was recorded with Pickering's first proper electric guitar. It's leaner, more direct, and more immediate than his debut. Reviews from The Spill Magazine, Backseat Mafia, Big Takeover, and others have been glowing.

Order Re: GenX: https://thenoisewhoruns.bandcamp.com/album/re-genx
Watch "Commercial Road": https://youtu.be/q1QSdRPyHzI
Watch "Bang Bang": https://youtu.be/SC15o1vh7hs
Watch "The Bodies Are Under The Bus Again": https://youtu.be/imIF6Ro1k98
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1LRZbh7KDhJzKIuPaUJmud