Sublime Is Back With Bradley Nowell’s Son, And It Feels Like The Continuation Fans Always Wanted

By Ben Liew  •  12 Jun 2026 in Features

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Three decades after Bradley Nowell’s death, Sublime return with Until The Sun Explodes, an album that honours the band’s legacy while finally giving one of California’s most beloved bands a future.

The Biggest Band That Never Got Their Due

Some bands dominate headlines. Others quietly reshape culture. Sublime belongs firmly in the second category.

Despite becoming one of the defining sounds of Southern California, Sublime never quite occupied the same mainstream pedestal as many of their ’90s peers. They arrived at a time when alternative rock was exploding, but Bradley Nowell’s death in 1996 cut the band’s story short at the very moment it was about to change forever.

After years of grinding through clubs, DIY tours, and building a devoted following across California, Sublime had finally reached the doorstep of mainstream success. The band had just completed work on their self-titled major-label debut, the record that would eventually give the world classics like ‘What I Got’, ‘Santeria’, and ‘Wrong Way’.

Bradley never got to see it. He died on 25 May 1996, just two months before the album’s release. The record would go on to sell millions of copies and transform Sublime from underground heroes into one of the defining bands of the decade.

That’s part of what makes Until The Sun Explodes so emotionally charged.

For nearly 30 years, Sublime’s story has carried an invisible asterisk. What if they had been given the chance to continue?

Beyond A Reunion. A Passing Of The Torch.

When iconic bands reunite decades later, the results can be awkward. The chemistry is gone, the hunger disappears, and the music often feels like an expensive tribute act performing for nostalgia rather than necessity.

That’s what makes Until The Sun Explodes so surprising. This doesn’t feel like a cash grab. It feels earned.

At the centre of that feeling is Jakob Nowell, Bradley’s son, who officially joined Sublime in 2024 after years of avoiding the idea entirely.

“There’s been people asking me to join the band since I was 12, and it was something I never wanted to do. I’d always told myself I’d never do the Sublime thing,” he said in an interview.

Jakob wasn’t raised to become a replacement for his father. He spent years building his own identity as a musician before eventually finding his way back to the band that shaped his life. It feels less like someone stepping into a role and more like someone growing into it.

As Jakob puts it, “This is my family.”

For fans, that’s what separates this reunion from so many others. Jakob isn’t trying to become Bradley. He’s carrying forward something that has been part of his life since birth, while understanding that some things can never be replaced.

Somehow, It Still Feels Like Sublime

The easiest mistake a legacy band can make is trying too hard to recreate the past. The second easiest is running away from it. Until The Sun Explodes largely avoids both traps.

Tracks like ‘Ensenada’ capture the laid-back groove, reggae rhythms, and sun-soaked atmosphere that made Sublime feel distinct in the first place. Elsewhere, the album bounces between punk energy, hip-hop influences, and off-kilter experimentation in a way that recalls the band’s classic records without becoming trapped by them.

Importantly, it sounds like music made by people who genuinely understand why Sublime mattered.

Not just the sound, but the spirit, imperfections, and weirdness too. The sense that every song could veer off course at any moment and somehow still land exactly where it needs to.

Collaborations with Fidlar, Skegss, G. Love, H.R. of Bad Brains, and Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge further reinforce the band’s deep roots within alternative culture and the scene that helped shape them.

For longtime fans, that’s perhaps the album’s greatest achievement. It doesn’t feel like a museum piece carefully preserving the past behind glass. It feels alive, messy, warm, unpredictable, and unmistakably Sublime.

This Ain’t No Reboot…

The title track carries the emotional core of the project. Jakob has been remarkably clear about what this album is and what it isn’t.

He said, “The last Sublime record that will ever be made is Self-Titled. There’s no replacing history, period.”

Instead, he describes Until The Sun Explodes as something else entirely: “an epilogue.”

That distinction says everything. The album isn’t trying to rewrite Sublime’s history. It’s acknowledging that the story never truly ended for the people who loved the band.

Jakob expanded on that idea further, calling the project “a tribute to the expansive works of Sublime” and “a thank you” to his father.

You can hear that perspective throughout the record. There’s an understanding that nobody is trying to recreate Bradley Nowell, because nobody can. Instead, the album focuses on preserving the spirit of Sublime while allowing the band to move forward in a way that feels natural.

Until The Sun Explodes

For years, Sublime existed as one of rock’s great unfinished stories. Bradley Nowell never got to see how deeply the band’s music would resonate. Fans never got to see where the group might have gone next.

Most reunions ask audiences to relive the past. This one asks what if the story was never actually over?

Thirty years later, Sublime aren’t trying to become the band they once were. They’re becoming the band they never got the chance to be.

And somehow, that feels exactly right.

Until The Sun Explodes by Sublime comes out today (12 June) on all streaming platforms.

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