Rainy Sunday Afternoon is the thirteenth studio album by Northern Irish pop band The Divine Comedy. It was released on 19 September 2025, via Divine Comedy Records in LP, CD, cassette and digital formats.[3]
The album was preceded by the band's 2019 release, Office Politics, the album was recorded at Studio 3 on Abbey Road.[4] On 8 April 2025, the first single of the album, "Achilles", was released.[5][6]
Louder Than War's Robert Plummer described the album as "a downbeat end to a bittersweet collection of songs that, subdued as it often is, has the salutary effect of confirming and strengthening our humanity," giving it a four-star rating.[3]Narc gave it a four-out-of-five rating, noting the "tracks are orchestral, full of lush vocal harmonies, fairground synths and complementary percussion, weaving between the country and western journey of Achilles, to music hall and jazz."[15]
The album received a three-star rating from the Arts Desk, whose reviewer Guy Oddy described it as "literate", "mature" and sounding "like a stocktaking, a deep breath and a meditation on late middle age."[7]BrooklynVegan referred to the project as Neil Hannon's "darkest album since 1998's Fin de Siècle," and "a lushly orchestrated record."[16]
In his review for Clash with a nine-out-of-ten rating, Gareth James noted the album as "one of the Divine Comedy's finest records and it draws from many of the most powerful elements of his musical instincts in support of a welcome emotional wallow."[8] It was given a score of eight by God Is in the TV, whose reviewer Steven Doherty called it "an album to get some things off his chest, and he does so melodically beautifully from start to finish."[9]
Hot Press' Will Russell assigned Rainy Sunday Afternoon a rating of eight, stating "Marvelous stuff altogether, but judging by the record sleeve – which features a svelte and youthful-looking Hannon – such macabre thoughts seem thankfully rather premature."[10]The Irish Examiner called it "one of the most sumptuous-sounding Divine Comedy albums to date."[4] The album was rated four stars by the Irish Times, which remarked, "Despite the somewhat less jocular mood, so high is the quality – as with pretty much everything that Hannon turns his hand to,"[11] and Mojo, which described it as "Hannon's most personal and poignant album to date, often feels profound, substantive, built to last."[12]
John Murphy of MusicOMH gave the project a four-and-a-half star rating, calling it "Hannon's most personal album to date" and "an album that's easily Neil Hannon's best in years."[13] The German and French editions of Rolling Stone each rated the album four stars. Writing for the German edition, Ina Simone Mautz praised the arrangements and melodies as "wonderful",[2] and Mathieu David for the French edition called it a "cleverly orchestrated and brilliantly performed record."[14]
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