Hardcore
UK

Released 17th of July, 2026

There isn’t anything one can tire of when it comes to hardcore, be it metallic, punk, or any other aside. What is less tiresome is when a band comes from Birmingham, in the English Midlands, no matter the genre. I’ve heard enough since Sabbath and Priest to know it produces a stable staple of good music.

It doesn’t always go my way, however. The self proclaimed “friendly” fivesome released the album, WE NEED YOU TO BLEED in February and it sailed straight past me…
Until GLIMMER, their latest EP landed, and I immediately had to have more of this angry, fully fueled punk aggro.

It transpires that GLIMMER opens with a most authentic bit of modern British punk and hardcore with FLAKE. With hints of Soft Play and Idles, FLESH CREEP applies angst poetry with jump instigating musicality. It continues further on BUBBLEGUM as well. Marrying groovy choruses with bouncy riffage.

The thing about the EP is that there is no need to cross over to other variables to prove the point. CHEAP HEAT and STRAIGHT FLUSH offer nothing more than a most honest window into any personal or social take on a turmoil needing an output.

I can toss as much word salad at this release as I like, but it is at the point when the two closing tracks make it all become less nonsense.
OPTICS has the empathic weight that made me sit up to bands like Sikth. It is this drive to remove the metal from the core that many a headbanger forgets is what drives that specific form of reflective rage.

The final, titular track offers a quandary for these ears. GLIMMER, the song, offers a compromise of sorts. I am reminded, on this track, of the underrated and underappreciated Peter Dolving, once of The Haunted and, his other project, Mary Beats Jane.
There are poetic rhythms and a sense of earnest storytelling in both vocals and instrumentality

As unfriendly as the EP sounds, FLESH CREEP have a sound that makes you feel at home. There’s always that glimmer of hope… I’ll see myself out.

GLIMMER by FLESH CREEP is out now through Sony Music and available on major streaming platforms as well as any record shop you ask to get it from.