Aural Aggravation

9th October 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Manchester’s finest self-labelled gutter punks, The Battery Farm are back with their first release in almost two years. Despite having only started out in 2019, ‘Your House Looks Spooky’ is their seventeenth single. There have been three albums in that time, too. Still, in the time away, they’ve regrouped, refocused, and penned another album: you could hardly accuse them of slacking, especially when the first taste of said forthcoming album lands in the form of such a ball-busting punk blast.

It’s only a fraction early for Halloween, but since the supermarkets have been flogging sweets, skeletons, and pumpkins since August bank holiday, the timing is probably about right, in fairness. And despite the title, and the cover art, it’s not actually a Halloween-themed song. As ever, there’s a lot happening here, both musically and lyrically. They describe it as ‘A song about punching down, judgement and the importance of good home décor’. Seemingly unrelated matters, but they spin them together nicely, pinned to a gut-shaking, snarling bass and piton-pumping drums, which provide the foundations for driving guitars and a gritty vocal delivery.

And when it comes to punching down, it seems to be the in-thing right now. Everything’s shit: that’s a fact, not an opinion. But right-wing opportunists are swooping on it and making capital by blaming migrants and the poor. Yeah, those asylum seekers who aren’t allowed to work, and are given a sustenance allowance of pennies a day while living in ‘accommodation’ which is practically a prison? Farage and Robinson and the like – moneyed grifters who are living it large on donations – whip up outrage among the lowest-educated, lowest-paid, and / or benefit claimants, by telling them that these people are taking their jobs and are the reason their lives are shit. Yep, Yaxley-Lennon pleads for donations from these dupes from his sun lounger in Spain, and Farage… Farage – married to an immigrant – needs to just fuck off and doesn’t warrant any more column inches anywhere. We’ll not even start on Trump, the most corrupt piece of shit to ever hold the American presidency. To cut to the chase, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and the worst of it is that the rich are doing so at the expense of the poor, as executive pay soars year on year while the workers who earn the money to fund those executive salaries receive below-inflation pay increases, year after year. Circuitously, but by a necessary detour, I arrive at the point: the rise to the top isn’t achieved by positive qualities, but by means of subtraction, and Battery Farm rail against all that shit by punching outwards, punching upwards, and punching hard with heartfelt fury against the system, the status quo.

Looping back to the cover art, the graffiti on the devastated, flame-wracked building is a statement in itself, and tells you where The Battery Farm stand. They’re the good guys, on the right side of history. They’ve got fire and passion in abundance, too.

The surprise here is just how accessible ‘Your House Looks Spook’ is. It’s no radio-friendly pop song destined for any R1 playlists, but it is strong on hooks – and would perhaps even qualify as punk-pop if it wasn’t so damn dense and dirty. And this is why it’s great, of course. Dense, dirty, angry is what I’m here for.

AA