Emergency Broadcast started in 2016 in Istanbul, built by drummer Gigi as a vehicle for things that couldn’t stay quiet — political frustration, veganism, straight edge, the kind of principles that once you commit to them, you don’t really go back.
Four albums and two EPs later, the band’s now based in London, running a completely different lineup and putting out some of the most direct hardcore they’ve made yet.
Their latest EP, “Make Them Pay,” dropped February 1, 2026, and the cover tells you what you’re getting before you press play: a bull tearing a human apart. No metaphors needed.
The Istanbul-to-London move wasn’t a lifestyle upgrade. It was tied directly to the political climate back home. Gigi and vocalist Mel — who joined in 2020 for the “Bloody Books” album — left Turkey around the time that record started picking up attention. “We had to start over in many ways — getting to know new people, getting to know the scene, and trying to find our space,” the band explains. The current lineup locked into place in 2023 with Alex on guitar and Benedikthas on bass.
“Bloody Books” leaned darker, heavier on atmosphere, and brought in what the band calls oriental elements — sounds rooted in where they came from. That record sits a bit apart in their catalogue. There were internal conversations about whether those touches would translate in the UK. “I guess there were moments when we discussed whether those elements would be appreciated or understood within the UK scene,” they say. “So I think we’re still trying to understand our global audience, and they’re still trying to understand us as well.”
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“Make Them Pay” goes the other direction. Where “Bloody Books” dug into mood, this EP strips back to the blunt end of hardcore — faster, more aggressive, sharper lyrics. “We wanted to lean into the more straightforward side of hardcore, which resulted in a much more aggressive sound,” the band says.
The concept across the whole thing is simple: identify the actual problem, hold the people responsible accountable. That’s it.
The political thread that runs through Emergency Broadcast’s entire existence didn’t change when they crossed borders — it just widened. In Turkey, they’d been living under escalating oppression since the early 2010s. Now, watching similar patterns play out across Europe, the perspective shifted. “It’s unfortunate to see that, just like solidarity and rebellion can spread among people across the world, oppression has also been influenced and shared by those who exercise it,” they say. “Today, we are united by many political issues — from the destruction of the planet to the rise of the far right and increasing police violence.”
The EP’s whole thesis boils down to something they put plainly: “The equation is not that complicated. We may have differences, but at the core the main problem seems to be one group holding all the power and all the rights to act as they wish, while others are expected to obey.”
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Mel’s presence in the band opened up another angle entirely. As a queer woman entering a scene she initially found heavily male-dominated — especially from her experience in Turkey — representation wasn’t a given. “After our first album, I sometimes felt judged because I wasn’t a dude,” she says.
She’s thoughtful about it, though. “Some people don’t want positive discrimination or to be labeled as ‘female-fronted,’ which I understand. I guess rather than creating categories, it’s about seeing and hearing people from different backgrounds, including queers, women, and other underrepresented voices, being part of the scene naturally.” The band sees the broader hardcore scene moving that way, with queercore helping push it along.
Despite the lineup overhaul, Emergency Broadcast haven’t wiped the slate. They still bring out older tracks live — “Stolen Life” from “Dirty All Over,” “I Am the Prisoner” and “Get the Point” from “Manipulation” — as long as they hold up alongside the newer stuff. “Our more recent productions have become the reference point for how much we go back to our older material,” they note. There’s also talk of a compilation down the line, re-recording some of that older catalogue with the current four-piece.
The music video for “Make Them Pay” premiered through Hardcore Worldwide, stitching together archive footage to match the EP’s tone. The writing’s been done with an international crowd in mind since day one — English lyrics, classic hardcore structures — but the Istanbul roots still sit underneath everything.
For 2026, the plan is a new single before summer and another EP around autumn. Live dates already locked in include March 21 at Camden Eye in London, April 4 at Moor Vault in Bermondsey alongside Dry Socket, Shooting Daggers, Tomar Control and Nothing Works, and April 5 at Last Breath Festival in Southampton. More festival appearances are coming.
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