Single review, video premiere & interview
Angry!
You’re Alright
Out on 14 April 2026
Angry! are from Southend On Sea and sing songs about people and things that irritate and annoy them, in a catchy lo-fi punk style. Formed in 2019 they have been a duo for many years, with (soon to be deleted) low-key releases on German Shepherd Records, but this is their first release since becoming a full four piece band last September. They may be ‘angry’ but this song has a sense of humour and irony about it – and lets the subject condemn themselves with their own words thrown back at them. Angry! are ‘Alright’ says Ged Babey.
2026 – The 50th Anniversary of Punk – and all everyone can do is look back (in anger) – When you don’t need to, because it’s still here and happening now. Underground so has to be sought out – the majority of the 70 bands on this compilation are currently active. The one that have been sending me their music for a while now are the most unlikely of the lot – an older couple who bashed out improvised rants about things that get their goat. They’re called Angry and when the Rolling Stones brought out a song called Angry, they quickly wrote and released one called The Rolling Stones. They’ve deleted now because it was rubbish, but you get the idea.
I love bands like this. Because, most ‘conventional standards’ don’t apply to them.
The singer doesn’t even attempt to sing ‘properly’. The guitarist just makes a ‘lovely noise’. But that is missing the point. They have ‘something to say’ – which is in itself a cliché. But they are angry by name, angry by nature, because they care. And they are not afraid to make a stand with only brash wit and musical naivety as their weapons. Complete outsiders as far as the commercial ambitions of the music business is concerned.They know their limitations. They know their audience is mainly older anarcho-punks – but if they can inspire a few young people (who are already interested in the politics and self-expression of DIY punk), by example, then they have succeeded. ‘If we can do it, so can YOU!’
Anne & Gary, singer & guitarist have been a duo since 2019, (the band name is contraction of their names: Anne/Gary becomes AnGry) but now with the much younger Chris & Justin onboard as rhythm section they are a ‘proper band’. (They considered expanding the name to AnGry JustIs but decided against it because Justin ended up with more than his fair-share of letters – and this is a democratic band.)
(Gary) Although we have a number of years history as a two-piece and released some singles, we’ve never really been satisfied with the recordings, so we intend to delete them shortly (but leaving up the videos) and concentrate on recording new material as a four-piece. If you listen to the old songs they will give you a sense of what we are about, though. The new line-up recorded three songs last September, the new single, “You’re Alright”, “I Don’t Care” which is available on a fund-raiser benefit compilation ….
…and “Girl at the Edge of the Moshpit”, which is currently unreleased. We will be recording material for an album, April to early June, for release in the Summer and we are currently looking for gigs to promote both the single and the album.
With echoes of Poison Girls and the feel of the real ‘Riot Women’ type bands – I Don’t Care is a cracker of a song on an essential 70 track compilation which includes contributions from practically every current DIY/Anarcho punk band that matters. BUY from HERE. ‘Name Your Price’ but don’t be stingy.
But here is the single… with it’s high-quality video
It’s a great song though. I asked singer Anne about the inspiration for it…thinking that I had guessed it.
(LTW) It’s not hard to work out what the lyrics to ‘You’re Alright’ are about: have you been chatting to potential Reform voters? The (wo)man In The Street. And they don’t want you to think that their racism extends to you…. was there any particular thing or event which inspired the song?
(Anne) The song actually predates Reform and was inspired by a conversation with another person of colour and its basically a list of things that people have said to me (us) over the years. The chorus especially, where someone says something particularly racist and then tries to expunge the vileness with “but you’re alright, you’re not like them!” My daughter’s aunt reminded me of people asking (or not even asking) to touch our hair, and that line was added after the song was written and being performed by us as a two piece.
I like the fact there is humour and irony in using their own words, thrown back at them, to condemn themselves. Do you see humour as a defence mechanism or a weapon?
(Anne) I didn’t deliberately set out to write humorous lyrics. Our first ever song came from when I was doing spoken word open mics. I was expressing my anger to Gary about the company I was working for, “they just want their money, they don’t give a fuck”, and it turned into a poem and Gary felt he could put music to it. It was a more constructive way of dealing with the emotion than internalising it. I’m not sure that the humour was intentional, but people could relate to it in a way that made them smile.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s like that quote from Homer ‘It’s funny cos it’s true’. I don’t like punk bands that are ALL comedy and pisstake. Angry have got the balance right. I love the bit in the video when you forget yourself and smile! And is it true those trousers double as a tent and can house a family of four?
(Anne) The fair-trade low-worn dungarees are designed to house around four migrants, preferably straight off a dinghy, and come with luxury accommodation, top of the range I-pads and three square meals a day.
Now, that, is off-the-scale punk rock sarcasm, to the max. But I still think Angry! are alright…
50 years of punk? Every year is Year Zero.
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