Australian band Gang of Youths to play Auckland, Wellington in 2022

Indie rock band Gang of Youths

Australian indie rock band Gang of Youths will return to New Zealand in 2022 to celebrate the launch of their latest album.

The group's third studio album angel in realtime will drop on February 25, 2022 and the band will tour Aotearoa in August, playing Auckland's iconic Powerstation and Wellington's Hunter Lounge.

Gang of Youths recorded a large chunk of the new album in Neil Finn's Roundhead Studios, saying they discovered "an affinity" with Aotearoa – specifically Auckland.

The album draws inspiration from frontman David Le'aupepe's Samoan heritage, with a majority of the tracks sampling David Fanshawe's recordings of music from the Polynesian islands.

One of these tracks, released on Thursday, is inspired by Le'aupepe's late father – a "gifted and passionate gardener".

The track is called tend the garden, and is about living without the guiding hand of your father. Le'aupepe says he wants the song to stand as a monument to his father.

"The journey he made from Samoa to Aotearoa to Australia was a difficult and inspiring one, but also fraught with mistakes, regret and terrible choices. I like to think he was building something beautiful, and pondering what life had given him in spite of his mistakes and concealment. We never knew his story until after he died, so this is the most poetic interpretation of his affinity for gardening that I could think of."

Gang of Youths will play in Wellington on August 16 and Auckland on August 17.