Benefits are an issues-based music collective from Teesside in the North East of England. They write songs about the urgencies that concern them, and they play them loud.
Forming in 2019 and consisting of Kingsley Hall on vocals, Robbie Major and Hugh Major on synths and noise, and Jonny Snowball on drums they quickly evolved from a fairly standard IDLES-lite shouty punk rock outfit to a politicised group that merges noise, hip hop, industrial rock, garage and an angry twitter feed to get it's point across.
A completely DIY outfit, (no management, no label, no PR) and despite having zero radio play (due to the nature of their lyrics), through their releases in 2021 they managed to gain fans as diverse as Sleaford Mods, Black Francis, Garbage and Elijah Wood as well as getting a significant feature in the NME.
The aim for 2022 is to take the anger away from the internet and perform it live on stage.
Benefits' songs are released one at a time, as soon as possible after the event(s) that inspired them, and strike a louder chord each time they're announced.
The Quietus
An instant punk battlecry against flag-shaggers
Saturday 18 Jun – 8:30pm