As the year winds down and everyone starts tallying highlights, London alt emo punks Achers show up with something less interested in neat endings. “Bottom of the Hill”, their new single, landed on December 5, 2025 and the EP of the same name follows on February 5, 2026, with “Blue Lights” arriving January 22 in between. It’s their first proper release since the 2023 demo “Go in”, and the first one recorded with drummer Vicki Butler.
Today the band joins us not just to talk about their own release, but to share a short, personal rundown of underground records that stuck with them this year — the kind of stuff that actually stayed on repeat, sparked ideas, or just hit at the right moment.
Achers operate out of London, somewhere between post-hardcore and indie rock. Pat, Pavel, Sabrina, and Vicki keep it direct. You can trace lines back to Unwound, Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, but it’s not cosplay.
The title track gets straight to the point. “Bottom of the Hill” sits in that familiar discomfort of class — growing up working class, moving through middle-class spaces, knowing you don’t quite fit and not wanting to pretend you do.
Pat talks about feeling “unwelcome and uninitiated in middle class environments”, that constant tug between access and distance. The song admits it. “Though I’m walking lines, I know where my allegiance lies,” he sings, sounding more resigned than defiant. Learning the rules late. Still being judged by them.
“Broken Clocks” turns its attention to the internet’s endless supply of easy answers, especially for young men looking for direction. It’s not anti–self-improvement, just suspicious of anyone selling certainty. “Bless your cotton socks, we’re all just broken clocks… / Don’t peak too soon, it’s just a tv wheeled in the classroom.” The band lets the lines loop and linger.
“Blue Lights” is the hardest track to shake. Written while Pat was raising a toddler, it pulls from the experience of scrolling through footage from Gaza — images of injured and dead children appearing alongside everyday life. The chorus borrows from a nursery rhyme sung to his child, which makes the contrast feel even starker. “We’re all witness tonight / scorched faces in blue lights.”
Elsewhere, the EP folds inward. “Asahi Bear” is about accountability and repetition — getting knocked down, getting back up, doing the work again. “I better read, watch, listen, over and over and over..” Not redemption, more maintenance. “Go in”, carried over from the demo, closes with a blunt push against anxiety and hesitation. “If no-one makes it out – go in, go in.”
The EP was recorded quickly at The Bookhouse Studios, produced by Rich Mandell and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dear Air Studios. You can hear the timeframe in the sound — tight, immediate, no excess gloss. It’s also the first release with Vicki Butler, who joined after meeting Sabrina at a Girls Rock London event, bringing a heavier, steadier pulse to the band.
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Achers themselves came together fast. In 2022, Pat and Sabrina signed up for London’s First Timers Festival before they had songs, a full band, or much of a plan. Pat hadn’t even sung lead before. They found Pavel online, pulled it together in weeks, and played their first show with low expectations. “People were kind and no eggs were thrown,” Pat recalls. That practicality still defines them.
Outside the band, things stay busy. Sabrina Amade also plays in Wasted Youth, active again since reforming in 2022. Pavel Borisov releases solo electronic music as Frailtynine. Different lanes, same work ethic.
Alongside the release, the band shared a short list of underground records they’ve been returning to this year. Here we go.
Stupid World
Pat: Melodic hardcore ala Lifetime, Tenement, maybe even a touch of The Movielife, yet from London. This hit my ears just as the dark winter evenings started at 4pm so these four anthemic singalongs helped keep winter blues at bay.
Sweet Fish
Pat: Three song single from London emo youngsters. It gave me the same ‘oh shit’ feeling as when I heard First Day Back’s ‘Forward‘ record. In that the kids are all alright, in a non patronising way. It’s awesome. There’s Cap’n Jazz, there’s Braid, there’s Ribbon Fix and Waltz and From Maggy to Margaret etc. It’s harkens back to a different era but it’s fresh and vibrant.
tethered
We’ve gone from melodic hardcore, to emo, to tethered who are emo and hardcore, perhaps. Full disclosure, we’ve played with tethered twice and they are lovely people as well as a killer live band. But this year they released their first lp via Extinction Burst. It’s for fans of Los Crudos, assfactor 4, Yaphet Kotto, Bullets In etc. A gleeful punch in the head and fellow lifers in their love of this, which is a joy to see. And a racket to hear.
Jawharp
Sabrina: If you’re drawn to music that’s noisy, wiry, and defiantly off-kilter, their debut album harks back to the more esoteric era of ’90s post-hardcore. There are flashes of early Black Midi energy (Schlagenheim specifically) only stripped down to something rawer, grimier, and more lo-fi.
Onstage, they’re a high-wired, restless, shambolic spectacle, that hovers on the brink of collapse and yet somehow finds moments of real brilliance.
Troutflies
Sabrina: For fans of lo-fi, anti-folk, and garage rock, this sound blends the stripped-back charm of Beck’s One Foot in the Grave with the earnest minimalism of Beat Happening and the playful grit of The Moldy Peaches. Their guitar and vocals are paired with melodica, xylophone, and occasionally skeletal drums. The album’s “purity” comes from its raw, unvarnished energy, favoring the core of the song over production polish.
Lifeguard
Sabrina: Born out of Chicago’s DIY scene, their long-awaited post-punk noise-rock debut marries dissonant guitars, squalls of feedback, and jagged noise with sharp, addictive hooks drawing heavily from the legacies of Wire, Gang of Four, and Fugazi. The result is raw, chaotic, and innovative. Songs that shatter pop conventions in favor of restless, shifting dynamics.
