There’s a strand of hardcore coming out of Central Europe right now that trades speed for weight. Records where the pulse slows, the chords sit longer, and the lyrics start to read like pages you’d sit with in a quiet room. Brach from Offenburg belong there.
“Plastic Lights“, their new four-song tape, arrives 17 July on Krachige Platten and Dingleberry Records, and it sounds like a band that has found space to be angry and searching at the same time.
Depending on who you ask, Brach play melodic hardcore, post-hardcore, or something with a metallic edge.
All three tags fit, none of them close the case. What runs through the record is closer to what a handful of German bands have been doing quietly for years now: dirty, emotional hardcore that leaves room to reflect between the loud parts. You can hear the weight in it, and the soul comes through instantly. Oh, and the sadness is there.
The tape is short. Four songs, hand-numbered in a run of 100 copies, with a small DIY zine and a sticker inside each one. Recorded in September 2025 by Stefan Ritter, mixed and mastered by Jan Oberg at Hidden Planet Studio. Design and layout by Brach. Out on Krachige Platten (who also put the band’s first two EPs together on tape), Dingleberry Records, and Brach themselves.
“Satellite” opens the record. It’s set in a dystopia where citizens are watched by unseen forces, stripped of privacy and autonomy, turned into “puppets” inside a system that owns their thoughts and futures. Paranoia and suffocation run through the song, with a small signal of wanting to break free underneath.
“Scars of Yesterday” is the melancholic one on the record. The band call it an outlet for the aftermath of an unrequited love. Someone pours their entire soul into a relationship and gets left with rejection, lingering memories, and self-doubt. A quiet hope stays in the song too, that time and future love will eventually take some of the weight off.
“Faded Repeat” is “a general ‘fuck you’ to the modern habit of wasting life away behind screens,” the band said. A call to step outside and feel the concrete under your feet. Real living, they add, comes from moments a phone can’t replicate.
“Nebel” is the German-language closer, and Brach call it their banger. “It describes the battle against inner demons, inner darkness, and the hard road to breaking through these walls and cages,” the band said. The struggle isn’t always crowned with success. “It’s a fighting attempt to lift one’s own life and perspective to another level and to a better place.”
The three UK dates land on the same weekend as the tape. Brach played a UK weekend last year that included Brighton and London, and this run picks up that thread.
“The London show was at Calamity Tank, and that’s where we’re playing again this time,” Kevin said. “Nottingham is new for us, and it’s on the run because Every Face Becomes A Skull are from there and do shows at JT Soar.”
The London date also connects to an earlier story. Last year, Brach had originally planned to play with Tethered, but changes to the lineup and venue meant the show ended up at Calamity Tank instead. “Tethered suggested Every Face Becomes A Skull as their replacement. We got along, and at some point the idea came up to do a few shows together in England again,” Kevin said. This time, everything went according to plan, and the upcoming London show will finally see both bands sharing the bill as intended.
Tethered are on the London date too this time. “That will be a great show,” Kevin said.
UK dates with Every Face Becomes A Skull:
17 July: Brighton, Pipeline
18 July: Nottingham, JT Soar
19 July: London, Calamity Tank (matinee)
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