Time to Be Alive

In early 2015 Cardle spoke about taking a different direction for his fourth album, with a more electronic sound than his previous work.[2] Throughout 2015 to 2017 he played several previously unheard songs at live gigs to test them on a live audience, even embarking on a 16 date tour, the Intimate and Live Tour in summer 2016, which he described as a "warm up" for the fourth album.[3] Describing the reasons for this he stated, "I’ve done a few live performances here and there to test out some of the new material too. I’ve found in the past that you can record an album and then tour it and wish afterwards that you’d done some of the songs differently. So this time around I’ve wanted to test the waters and perform the demos live first before making some changes. Back to front really but I’ve found it very helpful."[4] During a gig on 18 June 2016 in Guildford he performed a new song called "Desire" for the first time, which would eventually be the lead single from the album.

It was announced on 7 November 2017 that Cardle had returned to Sony for the release of his next album, after previously being dropped by them in 2012. Speaking of the new start he said, "Signing this new deal with Sony is one of the proudest moments of my life. After the highs of X Factor I sank to the darkest places I’ve ever been. But after overcoming addiction I finally found myself in a place where I was ready and able to create the album I have always wanted to. I then spent three years pouring blood, sweat and tears plus all my darkness and my hope into this album."[5] The song "Hallelujah" is about Cardle's experience with Vallium which he became addicted to.[6]

On 13 March 2018, the first play of the lead single, "Desire" was played on The Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2. On the same day it was announced the album, entitled Time to Be Alive, would be released on 27 April 2018 and was made available to pre-order. Two further tracks, "Time to Be Alive" and "Blind Faith" were also made available to download prior to the album release.

All tracks produced by Jim Eliot, except "Ten Ten", produced by Dimitri Tikovoï