Brutalligators launch the Nothing Sounds Good Record Club!

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!

Beginning in late 2016 when Paul and Luke clocked their shared love of emo and decided to write together, they were joined by Simo and Rhys soon after and started playing live in 2017. Their second album Still Here, released in November 2025, is packed with shout-along anthems and intimate confessions on grief, friendship, aging and gender, at no point pretending that everything is fine. The credits of the album show a sprawl of friends and trusted DIY producers, with community as the constant core motivation behind Brutalligators. 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.

Nothing Sounds Good Record Club is the vinyl subscription service started by Luke and Paul in 2025, sending new DIY punk, indie and emo records straight to music fans, which basically reads like a 'Sherwood Recommends’ list of the best UK bands about right now, and even includes their own zine with each release. The first eight records featured were:

#1 Soot Sprite - Wield Your Hope Like A Weapon

#2 Regal Cheer - Quite Good

#3 Really Big Really Clever - …huh?

#4 flinch. - Misery Olympian

#5 Brutalligators - Still Here

#6 SUDS - Tell Me About Your Day Again

#7 H_ngm_n - Paper Street

#8 Michael Cera Palin - We Could Be Brave

These are all brilliant records that we’ve been shouting about ourselves that you won’t hear through any mainstream source. Brutalligators and Nothing Sounds Good are right at the heart of the DIY underground, and we had to shine our spotlight on them.

Take us back to the beginning, and what made you decide to form a proper band instead of just talking about it?

Who were the key bands you felt spiritually closest to when you started out?

What did you want Still Here to capture that wasn’t on your debut?

Can you talk about the network of producers and friends you worked with on the record?

What are some of your favourite venues to work with, both as a band and as promoters?

Tell us about the decision to launch Nothing Sounds Good and why you feel it’s important?

How do you choose the releases that you’re going to feature?

What do you think connects all the different bands you’ve featured, and what is it that excites you about this scene at the moment?

Tell us about your zine, and why print zines are so important and awesome?

What is the ultimate goal of Brutalligators?