The art-grunge four-piece pair their new EP with focus single Home Run, bringing songwriting, production and visual art into the same creative space.
Tough Cookie have released Devotion, an EP recorded and produced by frontperson August over two weeks in the band’s East London church basement rehearsal space. August also created a series of paintings for the singles and EP artwork.
The project follows the band’s 2025 mixtape The Countryside Is Good For You and explores emotional fallout, self-preservation and the difficulty of leaving someone behind. At its centre is the songwriting relationship between August and bandmate Dan, whose conversations shaped the EP’s harmonies, textures and arrangements.
Focus single Home Run deals with, in August’s words,
cutting someone out of your life that hollowed you out, and how leaving can feel like both a victory and a betrayal at the same time.
The EP’s title draws on Patti Smith’s book Devotion. August says
The way she’s able to frame even the most devastating scenarios with such beauty never fails to amaze me. Devotion is a reference hidden within everything I write.
Tough Cookie will play headline EP shows at YES in Manchester on 15 November and The George Tavern in London on 24 November, followed by support dates with thistle. in December.
Tough Cookie live dates
- 14 November: Echo Sound Festival, Sheffield
- 15 November: YES (Basement), Manchester — headline
- 24 November: The George Tavern, London — headline
- 1 December: Dust, Brighton — supporting thistle.
- 8 December: Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh — supporting thistle.
- 10 December: Trades Club, Hebden Bridge — supporting thistle.
- 11 December: The Chapel, Nottingham — supporting thistle.
- 19 December: The Deaf Institute, Manchester — supporting The Rolling People