Benefits - Nails

Over lockdown, these teesside agitators morphed from spirited, guitar-led punks into overwhelmingly brutal, harsh noise-wielders, whose furious, eviscerating music has somehow been yoked into this, their debut album.

Frontman kingsley hall’s spoken (and screamed) vocals act as a righteous rebuke to the divisive, xenophobic, poisonous rhetoric coming from elsewhere, spread by those who stand to profit from the fallout, that had all but overwhelmed our public discourse.

Invada's co-founder geoff barrow of portishead was one of the many who’d been drawn to the music as it made waves online, and when he came to see the group perform live in his native bristol was immediately hooked. His faith in the band has been repaid and then some, producing a record that not only confirms the group’s brilliance, but also redefines what you thought was possible. It captures all of that validating rage that established them as one of the most exciting acts in the country – skull crushing fan favourites ‘flag’, ‘empire’ and ‘meat teeth’ are all present and correct – but also pushes their sound into bold new territory, both sonically and emotionally.