Aural Aggravation

12th July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Anyone who says politics should be kept out of music is talking bollocks. An integral part of musical history is the music of protest, and of music which speaks of the times. While not necessarily protest-based, many dark moments of history are captured within traditional folk songs – long before the 60s gave us a whole new model for folk music as a vehicle for protest. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Cat Stevens are just the first few names which come to mind as artists who picked up an acoustic guitar and used it to voice their anti-war sentiments, and it’s a mantel that’s been carried by many since, perhaps most prominently by Billy Bragg.

The arrival of punk brought a different kind of dissenting voice – one that was angry, nihilistic, and wasn’t so much anti-war as anti-everything, seeking to smash the system and stick it to the man. It shat the establishment up for a while, too, because it was brash, menacing, and felt violent, dangerous. This was Thatcher’s Britain: unemployment was up, there were strikes galore and discontent was more than rife. Of course, the major labels saw pound signs and signed punk bands left right and centre and before long, many acts were defanged by the wheels of capitalism in motion. And so the true punks stuck to, or remained resolutely, DIY, and while punk’s undergone a host of mutations since 1977, it still has both the sound and the vibe – particularly in the DIY scene – that positively yells ‘anti-establishment’. And this is, essentially, Craic Killers in a nutshell. The London-based Irish duo take certain cues from Kneecap, who, while having drawn heat from ‘the establishment’ are widely lauded for being not only outspoken, but sticking to their (metaphorical) guns in the face of litigation and more.

Before we get to the music, it’s worth taking a moment to consider the question of what constitutes ‘the establishment’ these days. Farage will tell you he and Reform and seeking to unsettle the status quo, to challenge the establishment and that they represent the man in the street who is fed up with not being represented by politicians in parliament. Bankrolled by tax-evading millionaires and billionaires whose funds reside off shore and who seek to siphon off even more wealth for their own personal gain, this is patent bullshit, and making those men on the street angry because they’ve been tricked to believe it’s the fault of immigrants that they’re poor and local services are shit is a massive con. The establishment does not exist to serve the regular worker. The establishment’s ethos is built on the foundations of the worst of capitalism, and this is why the establishment – both here in the UK, and particularly across the pond – is so hell-bent on dismissing any ideology that’s even remotely left (by which I mean, they hate welfare of any kind, particularly free healthcare, because ultimately, they don’t believe the poor deserve to live), and why they’re so desperate to crush dissent. It’s not because they believe protesters are terrorists, but because they hate to be exposed, and also can’t stand to see their absolute power and total authority challenged. There is much wrong with all of this, and more.

And Craic Killers are calling it out. All of it. As they tell it, ‘The new work goes in on the Epstein elite, MAGA bootlickers and major government failures such as the PSNI & TFL. Who Said I Was… matches the first EP’s intensity and themes of world collapse with a more refined sound.

It’s hard to argue any of that, really. Released last October, Who TF is Craic Killers? was a full-throttle blast of super-lo fi electropunk fury. Part of its appeal was the lack of production, rendering it the very quintessence of DIY. Cleaning up the sound is by no means selling out, especially when Who Said I Was… still sounds like it was recorded in a 4-track app on a smart phone. They rip into Andrew Tate and the ‘manosphere’, blast ICE, and tackle issues closer to home: certainly, the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) and their actions aren’t widely reported further afield, but as the sole note which accompanied the single release simply stated ‘All Peelers Are Bastards (and pedos)’. Trust in police is at a low eight now, for so many reasons, and the recent appearance of ‘ACAB’ graffitied under the bridge which carries the A64 over the River Ouse near where I live (alongside ‘Fuck Nazis’) is telling of the mood, I feel.

With the exception of ‘GIMMIE’ (released as a single in June), none of the six songs run over three minutes – but all of them are delivered with a ragged, riotous energy. By which I mean these guys are absolutely fucking fearless, and relentless in their intensity. ‘TFL’ may be slower and lower, but it’s dingy and abrasive, the vocals somewhere between hardcore punky shouting and really aggro rapping, while the closer, ‘Public Relations’ is unexpectedly catchy, but still as scuzzy as fuck.

It’s worth spending some time and a few listens to pick out the lyrics, but Who Said I Was… hits like a back-and-forth slap round the chops from the very first bar and keeps it going to the end. This is precisely what punk is about: impact, going in hard, no compromise. They don’t come much more punk than Craic Killers.

AA