Brutalligators
November 10, 2021| Dan Hillier |FEATURES
“I feel like opening up Twitter is enough for 20 albums worth of fast, angry punk songs about how terrible people can be.” – Introducing Brutalligators
A self-stated “post-youth band”, Brutalligators are what could be described as the sound of the millennial generation sliding into the agonising throes of ever advancing age and the pains that come with it.
Hailing from Hertfordshire and taking form as an “awkward pile of limbs”, Brutalligators present down-tuned heavy indie punk in it’s most vulnerable and exposed form. Harkening thoughts of acts such as Hard Aches, PUP and Free Throw whilst simultaneously channeling the fervent energy of scene mates such as Nervus, Don’t Worry and Fightmilk, the act have swiftly built a reputation for themselves since their 2016 formation, one revolving around their penchant for writing and performing buoyant songs about life derailing and the societal injustices in modern life. Yet whilst their two respective extended plays, 2017’s Animals I Wish I’d Seen and 2019’s Friends I Wish I’d Had, displayed such skill and disposition wonderfully, it’s their recently released debut LP This House Is Too Big, This House, This House Is Too Small that truly presents the band in their greatest, most intimate and most cathartic form.
Produced by Tom Hill (Cassels, Death Goals, Modern Rituals) and created over the span of three years in thanks to our dear friend Covid, the bulk of This House Is Too Big, This House Is Too Small comes from a pivotal moment in the life of front-person and lyricist Luke Murphy. Intense loss, heartbreak and, put simply, divorce was the predominant catalyst for this album. However, despite such a bleak incentive, this is a record of both acceptance and understanding, both of the primary situation at hand and of life itself. With fantastic articulation, witty wordplay, relatable intimacy and an almost ceaseless amount of pop hooks, Brutalligators have painfully and arduously forged a record that’s cathartic and joyous, especially with how the band audibly exercise their collective woes and accept the unstoppable march of time over the span of the record. Plus, with the record being complete with interplanted hardcore-orientated condemnations on Government ineptitude and ruminations on embracing queer identity, this is truly a record that’s impossible not to find comfort within.
With This House Is Too Big, This House Is Too Small out now via Beth Shalom Records, we caught up with Brutalligators to get a greater understanding of the band and their process.
For those new to Brutalligators, how would you briefly describe the band?
“Brutalligators make loud pop songs and can’t quite decide whether they want to be indie, punk or emo.”
Musically, what are your main inspirations?
“As with most bands, it’s a real melting pot of everything. We meet in the middle over a love of recent indie-punk like Camp Cope, Hard Aches, Free Throw, Proper and PUP, as well as classic elder emos like Jimmy Eat World, The Promise Ring and The Get Up Kids. But It was bands like Dikembe, You Blew It! and The Hotelier that made us want to start this band and make music again.”
Your new record This House Is Too Big, This House Is Too Small is releasing November 5th. How are you feeling about the upcoming release?
“This feels like the first time that our sound has been properly captured in a record, which is both terrifying and massively exciting to put out there. We worked really hard on it and know we absolutely adore what we ended up with, so we’ve got our fingers crossed that at least one other person out there will love it as much as we do.”
The record has been in the works for about three years now, what was the process like working on a record for such an extended period of time?
“Considering some of these songs date back to before our previous EP, it was surprising how much of a whole the album ended up sounding, both musically and thematically. I do think that because we had to delay the recording and release of it, we’ve been able to sit with songs for longer and figure out what they needed. We ended up cutting entire verses, doing wholesale rewrites and cutting songs that we loved, but in the end, the record feels whole and right. However, recording during the pandemic had its challenges and I don’t think i’d want to record on and off for over a year again!”
The album was produced by Tom Hill, what was it like working with them, was it a collaborative process?
“We love Tom, he mixed our last EP, which cemented the fact we wanted to work on the record with him. He knew what we wanted to achieve and his influence and experience added a hell of a lot to the end product. I don’t think it would’ve ended up sounding anywhere near as good as it did without Tom in the mix. And we love the Bookhouse studio.”
The record feels quite upbeat and positive despite delving into themes of injustices and heartbreak. What’s your process on creating such a contrast? Do you feel like serves as some sort of an antidote to all of the constant misery and bleakness in society right now?
“I’ll be honest, a lot of the songs on this record were pure personal cathartic release. More than half the record was directly inspired by an unexpected divorce, so a lot of the lyrics come from a pretty dark place. In saying that, I seem to deal with grief and trauma through sarcastic positivity mixed with self-hatred. I’d much prefer to shout and dance about how much of a piece of shit I am than become the sad boi I should be. But it was also very important to us that was catharsis in the record and hopefully it ends on a hopeful and positive note.”
Was creating the record a cathartic experience, especially given the current affairs?
“It was certainly an opportunity to escape a lot of what was happening at the time. It gave us something to focus our time and energy on and ultimately making music with your friends is about as cathartic as it gets. I don’t think anyone could have envisaged making an album during a pandemic when we started it at the beginning of 2020 but it means we have something positive to look back on from a time that was scary and fucking horrible for everyone.”
‘Protect Yr Own’ is an absolutely scalding takedown aimed at the utter ineptitude of tories and feels like the most urgent track on the record. How did that song come into creation?
“As you can probably tell we are no fans of Boris and the Tories. At the time that we wrote it the government’s response to the pandemic was so inept that it genuinely felt like they were trying to kill us, so PYO was a direct response to that. We have a bit of a history of creating sub-two-minute punk songs about things we’re angry about. ‘You’re Brutalligatored’ was about the stoking of xenophobia around Brexit, ‘Kill Your Heroes’ was about men being abusive pieces of shit within the music industry and now we have ‘Protect Yr Own’. I doubt it’s going to stop soon, either. I feel like looking at the news or opening up Twitter is enough for 20 albums worth of fast, angry punk songs about how terrible people can be.”
The album artwork and a lot of your designs features Japanese motifs, what’s the reason behind that?
“It all ties into the first track. As mentioned, the recording process kicked off at the beginning of a separation, which came to a head on a holiday in Tokyo. Japan became a marker in my life. A totem for when one part of my life ended and another part started. With that in mind, I’m sure my therapist probably has something to say about my growing obsession with Japanese culture, design and style over the last 2 years. But there are so many concepts in Japanese culture that fit with the idea of the album. Things like ‘mono no aware’ about the beautiful sadness that everything is temporary. Or Kintsugi, the idea of mending broken pottery with gold or silver to make the fixed item more beautiful. We were also very luckily that Sophie Wright (Cheerbleederz, Painter, Finish Flag) agreed to do the album and single art. She’s very talented and completely nailed it.”
Finally, what do you want people to take away from This House Is Too Big, This House Is Too Small?
“To be honest, if someone listens to the album and finds some level of catharsis in something we’ve said, or the sound they’ve heard, that will mean the world to us.”
