If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, is it a fan of Hitlist?

The answer is yes because everyone and everything should be a fan of Hitlist.

They are the distillation of the Leeds music scene into its purest form. They are loud, angry, unrepentant and in your face. They are a band full of the “fuck-you” stylings of the early greats of punk and headed by the most badass front person that the city has seen emerge since Andrew Eldritch put on his first pair of sunglasses. Anyone who has seen them live knows the energy that they bring and if you have not seen them live then you are missing out in a way so painful it almost physically hurts. But until you go and see them (or go and see them again), because you will want to after hearing it, listen to their latest single instead, because its ninety-nine percent as good as having them scream it in your face.

Proving the rule that it is impossible for Hitlist to drop a bad release, their latest single Dirtbrain and its brilliant B-side Alliser Thorne highlight this group of gnarly punks at their raucous finest. Sounding like a song that would have formed a lifelong taste in music on a Tony Hawks soundtrack, Dirtbrain is archetypically of everything that Hitlist embodies. It starts with a howl that foretells all the energy of the song that follows as it breaks into a crunchy raw guitar track complete with shredding riffs over top. Then comes the vocals courtesy of the always insanely great Maddy Wilkinson. With lyrics about telling the people who mess you around in life to go fuck themselves that are full of reverb and regularly peaking, they are everything that make punk fun to listen to. You do not even have to pay attention to the lyrics to just vibe to the power and swagger of the words being hurled at you and bag your head along with them. The drums underneath are rich and crash heavy during the riotous chorus, as they should be.

Towards the end of the song, one that clocks in at a fast and furious two and half minutes, Hitlist manage to squeeze in a full breakdown solo section to relieve the tension of the screaming guitars. It’s full of fuzzy guitar goodness, a run up and down on the bass, a micro hard rock guitar solo diving into a noise rock crash at the end as Wilkinson’s vocals return for one last run at their full screaming brilliance to end the song as energetically as it began.

This song fits as much as it possibly can in its deeply punk run time, from stunning vocals to guitar tones straight from the best video game soundtracks of the early 2000s without it ever feeling over-stuffed. It stands as an exemplar of what punk can keep evolving into as other influences are allowed to steep into it and create a catchy and danceable tune that never feels like it has compromised on anything, favouring subtle complexity over ear-destroying simplicity. It is an amazing track, and it would not be surprising to see it as the progenitor of a sound of Leeds-punk.

The B-side for this release is Alliser Thorne , a screaming recital of the Night’s Watch Vows from Game of Thrones. It is an idea that could come off as bizarre if it didn’t summon the almighty power of Siouxsie Sioux’s recital of the Lord’s Prayer and fuse it with Flatmoon style alt-funkiness to create the backbone of this tracks DNA. Despite its premise, do not mistake this as a simple track to have some fun with, this is a statement of what the band can do. They take a piece of pop culture and turn it into a visceral punk-funk-noise rock cluster of sub-two-minute mastery in which they practically peacock everything they can do.

From showing off that yes, in fact, they do have a second vocalist, Henrik, and he is really good to thank you very much, to showing that their bassist is funky as hell in a world-class sort of way it’s a way of expressing that they could go anything they wanted musically but they’re choosing to perfect punk because they want to, not because they have to. In a way it leaves you on edge as a Hitlist fan as you know now what they are capable at any given time but entirely on their terms, not yours. It is as punk as punk gets. It is a big up yours that sticks two fingers up and says we’re doing this now, you don’t get to tell us that we’re not and you are going to love it. It is also the perfect companion piece to Dirtbrain in that it creates a ying-yang of traditional punk against hardcore, conventional against very unconventional and it pays off in the best way imaginable for your eardrums. Dirtbrain and Alliser Thorner are both great and, if you couldn’t tell already, Hitlist are too.

This release shows the power of the band with the continual weight of Monomyth records behind them can continually create gold from the lead of Leeds life. It is a release that both sits satisfactorily on its own but begs for more as the combined four and a half minutes leaves any fan of damn good punk music salivating for more and hurriedly searching for tickets for wherever they’re playing next.

Words by William Hatfield