Brutalligators are an indie-punk four-piece from Hitchin who’ve been steadily building a community with gigs, collaborations, side projects, and now a monthly vinyl subscription service that’s been sending some of our favourite new records directly to people’s doors!
They regularly run their own all-dayers and Christmas shows to gather the bands they love in the same room and celebrate their big singalongs together, involving themselves in DIY promotion and helping to build the infrastructure to help the scene continue.
Read our full interview with Luke from Brutalligators at sherwoodzine.com/interviews
Brutalligators - Still Here
Banging release from late last year by indie punks @brutalligators
#brutalligators #punkvinyl #vinylcommunity #vinylcollection #nowspinning
HAVE YOU HEARD...STILL HERE by BRUTALLIGATORS?
🏆 Sherwood’s Great Taste Award Winner 2026 🏆
Still Here is an adult emo album, carrying the real weight of divorce and the grief of memories that didn’t turn into the lives they were meant to be. Where teenage emo magnifies arrested adolescent feelings, this album aches with devastation and huge communal choruses that are more about survival than the performance. Representing a lineage of UK emo and pop-punk that has always been more about catharsis than polish, Brutalligators trade in raw DIY honesty over studio perfection.
The album is under 40 minutes, but the emotional arc is exhausting, heavy with regret, resilience and stubborn survival as Luke’s Australian accent adds tremendous warmth and character to an otherwise very British 2000 Trees emotional framework. Still Here sets the tone immediately with huge, defiant gang vocals, and Get Better follows with a soaring chorus designed for a full room to scream it back together. Throughout the record there’s an overwhelming sense of camaraderie in the performances, sounding like the band are holding one another up. The slower songs are devastating, with Hold Fast a standout that opens gently and builds towards an anguished climax. The song is about remaining in a home that was bought for two, now occupied by one, and Luke’s screams feel necessary rather than theatrical. The fast songs are phenomenally catchy, with Train Wreck embracing messiness and uncertainty with joyful defiance. What’s Next swings into colossal pop-punk territory, and Can’t Sleep is a perfect emo song capturing insomnia, as the blunt simplicity of the words ‘Can’t Sleep’ hits so hard; we all know the feeling. Millenial anxiety is threaded through all these songs, the sense of lives not coming together and everything going wrong despite the best efforts, all handled with humour and solidarity instead of self-pity, and the slower moments evoke Frank Turner in the stubborn insistence on continuing on with emo for the right reasons. Give it a go if you like Biffy Clyro.
We’re back at @thelexingtonlondon at the end of the month with our favourites @fightmilkisaband (it’s been too damn long) and the legends in New Starts for the @fikarecordings Winter Sprinter. I’ve been attending the Winter Sprinters for years so it feels surreal to actually be on stage!!!
Brutalligators started in late 2016 when Paul and Luke met for a coffee and discovered a mutual love of 90s and 00s emo and hardcore. Having been in various hardcore and emo bands throughout the 00s and 10s, they decided to try and write some songs together and Brutalligators was born. Simo and Rhys joined soon after, before they debuted at The Good Ship in Kilburn in 2017. They self-released their first EP Animals I Wish I’d Seen in 2017, following with the second EP Friends I Wish I’d Had in 2019 via Real Ghost Records. Their debut album This House is Too Big, This House is Too Small was released in 2021 on Beth Shalom Records, which Noizze commented that the album “presents the band in their greatest, most intimate and most cathartic form.” Since releasing This House is Too Big… Brutalligators have been tearing up stages across the UK and Europe, supporting bands such as Fresh, Michael Cera Palin, Dikembe, Johnny Foreigner and Martha.
New episode @brutalligators out now!
Besides live music, what a year it was! I listen to 725 records.
Here's my top 10:
1) Fortitude Valley - Part of the Problem, Baby (Indie Punk)
2) Brutaligators - Still Here (Punk Rock/Indie Punk)
3) CF98 - STUPID PUNK (Pop Punk/Punk Rock)
4) Thrice - Horizons/West (Post Hardcore)
5) Little Low - Sunshine Guilt (Emo)
6) Slackrr - A Light On The Horizon (Emo/Pop Punk)
7) Tired Radio - Hope in the Haze (Punk Rock/Emo)
8) Pool Kids - Easier Said Than Done (Emo/Math Rock)
9) Burnt Tapes - New Lungs (Emo/Indie Punk)
10) flinch. - misery olympian (Emo/Indie Punk)
What a year it’s been. Thanks to everyone who came out to a show, who bought merch, who listened to the new record, who joined us onstage or at the bar. Merry Christmas and here’s to a happy 2026 x
Last night was the sixth Brutallixmas, hosted by Brutalligators at The Victoria in Dalston, and it was an absolutely glorious, sweaty, loud, and friendly knees-up. The atmosphere was buzzing from start to finish and every band smashed it.
Brutalligators are stalwarts of the UK’s underground emo/pop-punk scene, a totally DIY network of passionate bands and fans lifting each other up with this band right at the heart of it.
Their new album Still Here is an absolute belter (full review coming in the New Year) and they’re a flagship act for the scene who know how to throw a terrific party.
It’s done. We made a second album. Thanks to everyone who came down to the launch party in Brighton. Thanks to the H_ngm_n legends for having us. Thanks to everyone who’s listened to the album already. Grab a ticket for our last show of the year - Brutallixmas @ the Victoria in Dalston on the 19th xx
Lineup update! Super sad that Period Drama had to drop out because of injuries, but we’re super stoked to add TWO awesome bands to our festive shenanigans: @budsfullstop (in their third brutallixmas appearance) and the awesome @aridwaveuk . Christmas just got way more brutal.
Tickets on Dice!
