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CLUB BRAT is a high-intensity punk/noise pop band defying traditional labels, blending jagged guitars, bass-heavy dissonance, and volatile rhythmic urgency. Originally from Peterborough and now split between Bristol and London, the five-piece formed in 2023 and quickly earned a reputation for unpredictable live shows and a relentless DIY ethos, while still working with some of underground music’s most respected engineers.
Their upcoming EP, ‘4 Songs’ (out 12th September via VENN Records), was recorded at HUMM Studios with Dom Mitchison and Archie Jones, and mastered by Bob Weston of Shellac - a clear nod to the Albini school of stark, unvarnished production. But the EP isn’t political in content - it’s political in form: concise, deliberate, and unapologetically direct. Yet CLUB BRAT resists comfortable interpretation. Their songs provoke, not preach - inviting listeners to draw their own conclusions and turning each encounter into something personal and open-ended.
The lead single from ‘4 Songs’, ‘Goodbye Pop Culture’, is out now with a video by Chris Hugall (Split Dogs), and it’s a jarring, yet infectiously pulsing and rhythmic clamour that plugs directly into the electronics of dance as much as it does the discordant guitars.
“Goodbye Pop Culture lives in the tension between form and collapse, tradition and mutation, the past and what’s next,” explains guitarist Joe Smith. “It’s concise, deliberate, and unapologetically direct. CLUB BRAT doesn’t preach. We resist easy interpretation. This song won’t tell you what to think - it invites you to feel, to sit with the discomfort, and come to your own understanding.”
Drawing from Fugazi, Idles, and The Pixies to Drum ’n’ Bass and early 2000s Alternative, CLUB BRAT refuses to be boxed in by genre. What defines them isn’t style - it’s urgency: raw, confrontational, and constantly evolving. Or, as Steve Ignorant of CRASS puts it: “Miss out on this band at your peril - inspiring, entrancing and unstoppable – they are coming your way!”