Who TF are Craic Killers?
I was introduced to Craic Killers outside the Mo Chara court case, and their unapologetic punk energy was palpable even then. This Welsh-Irish duo, based in South East London, carry the weight of dual colonialisms in their DNA, the occupied North, the subjugated Welsh language, and the erasure of Celtic identities under British imperialism. Add queerness to that matrix, and you have artists who know intimately what it means to have your existence politicised, your culture commodified, your resistance criminalised. Their EP, Who TF Is Craic Killers, arrives not as a question, but as a gauntlet thrown—these are ones to watch.
From the opening salvo, one senses a band unafraid to dismantle the comfortable. This isn't merely music; it's an auditory manifesto. Whilst you can't deny the Kneecap influence threading through the work, there is definitely an overriding punk/riot grrrl influence throughout, with shades of Kathleen Hanna…if she had joined the INLA. The production is raw and immediate, Irish and English vocals pushed forward in the mix like they're shouting directly into your face, drums hitting with deliberate brutality, bass lines that refuse to let you settle. The vocals are the voice of the dispossessed, the unheard, echoing through the hollowed-out chambers of a fractured society.
Na Muca (Irish for The Pigs, of course) starts energetically; there doesn't seem to be a moment to pause, in a good way. The track opens with a driving, relentless drum pattern that feels like boots on pavement, guitars slashing in with distorted urgency, and vocals delivered in a breathless, almost spoken-word rapid-fire that forces you to lean in and catch every word. The political lyrics call out police brutality, from the RUC, Met and LAPD, and the infectiously poignant:
They won't admit it, they've the chart in their car,
Darker than a beach tan, you're not going too far,
No pale skin like Dracula, they won't let you in,
But he won't get in either, bloody immigrants,
This verse deserves dissection. The internal rhymes create a claustrophobic urgency, trapping the listener in the same profiling logic it critiques. "The chart in their car"—presumably a skin tone comparison chart, the bureaucratisation of racism made mundane, administrative. The "beach tan" line is devastatingly sardonic: acceptable brownness versus criminalised brownness, that arbitrary line between holiday glow and deportation. Then the pivot—"But he won't get in either, bloody immigrants"—exposes how white supremacy eventually devours itself, how fascism's definitions of purity constantly narrow. The colloquial "bloody immigrants" mimics the very language of the oppressor, turning it back as a mirror. Linguistically, this is protest poetry functioning as punk—economy of language, maximum impact, the personal made structural. Sonically, the vocals spit these lines with genuine venom, no melodic cushioning to soften the blow.
Freaks is our anthem at The ZineUK., This is the track that will be blasting from every squat, every protest, every queer space that refuses to compromise. The production here strips back slightly, a pulsing, hypnotic bass sound anchors the track whilst guitars jangle and screech in equal measure, creating space for the vocals to shift between sung melody and spoken confrontation, sometimes within the same line.
The brilliance of this track lies in its refusal to let icons remain untouchable. Coco Chanel, still worshipped as the queen of elegance, her brand plastered across every aspirational lifestyle magazine, her perfume in every duty-free shop, was a Nazi collaborator. Not "complicated," not "a product of her time"—she actively worked with German military intelligence, shacked up with a Nazi officer at the Ritz whilst Paris starved, and tried to steal her Jewish business partners' company using Aryan laws. But we're supposed to ignore all that because she made a nice handbag? Because the little black dress is "timeless"? Fascism doesn't become acceptable because it's wearing No. 5.
Never take off one thing when you’re looking in the mirror. Coco Chanel was a Nazi spy, so don’t take her advice.
And RuPaul, the liberal media's favourite queen, the "safe" face of the community, Emmy-winning and corporate-sponsored, telling us all to love ourselves whilst he's literally destroying the planet for profit. RuPaul owns a 60,000-acre ranch in Wyoming where he leases land for fracking. Fracking. Poisoning water, devastating Indigenous land, accelerating climate collapse, all so he can add more zeros to his bank account. This is the person held up as our icon? This is liberation? Craic Killers see straight through it:
RuPaul fracks for oil, call her mother killing Mother Earth,
Oh, visibility is great, but is that what it's worth?
Dhaoine Tinn (Sick People, if my Irish is right) should be the new chant at our pro-Palestine protests. This track is the most anthemic on the EP—handclaps and gang vocals create a call-and-response structure that demands participation, the kind of song that translates seamlessly from recording to protest line, with guitars that chug forward like a marching cadence:
Dhaoine tinn, get the IDF into the bin,
It's saoirse don Phalaistín or it's absolutely nothing
And we're here for the linking of colonialism in Occupied Ireland with Palestine:
And don't you ever forget, yous are murderers,
I want my counties back
The Welsh-Irish perspective here is crucial; these artists understand colonialism not as abstract theory but as lived geography, as language stolen, as land partitioned, as histories rewritten by the coloniser's pen. When they sing for Palestinian liberation, it's not performative solidarity; it's recognising the same boot on different necks. The vocals here shift to a lower, more menacing register, letting each word punch the air as the instruments crash in.
Fire is a sonic middle finger, the guitars are deliberately abrasive, feedback-heavy and discordant, whilst the vocals drip with theatrical mockery, adopting the sing-song cadence of playground taunts to devastating effect. It's a love letter to the Daily Mail-reading middle-aged women occupying the TERF island:
I'm signing the petitions, the Tories fucking rock,
Transgender people? They can suck my cock,
I won't do my research, and I don't read.
But what more knowledge could I possibly need?
The satirical vocal performance here is key, delivered with exaggerated sweetness before the profanity hits like a slap, the production keeping everything slightly off-kilter and uncomfortable, which is precisely the point.
Ní Amárach finishes this EP that, to be honest, we didn't want to end (full-length album, when?) The closing track builds slowly, starting with a lone guitar line that could be melancholic if it weren't so defiant, before drums and bass join in a mid-tempo groove that feels like gathering strength, vocals delivered with weary determination that transforms into furious resolve:
Tiocfaidh ár lá, ní amárach anois,
Take off your top, give us a look at the Brits,
South East manners and the rest is ó Érinn,
Kissing my teeth whilst I'm bashing your head in.
The geographic specificity here: South East London grit meeting Irish defiance, maps their identity onto sound. This is diaspora music that refuses assimilation, that carries home as weapon and shield. The track ends not with a fade but with a sudden cut, leaving you wanting more, which is exactly the point of an EP this vital.
We at TheZineUK recognise sonic resistance. Music has always been how marginalised communities archive our histories when the state won't, how we survive when survival itself is criminalised. Craic Killers understand that for the colonised, the queered, the erased, art isn't supplementary to resistance. It is resistance.
Craic Killers are more than just an introduction; they're an awakening, a political statement carved in sound, daring us to listen, question, and rise. They are unapologetically queer, ferociously political, and absolutely essential.
Tiocfaidh ár lá.
Who TF Is Craic Killers is available now on all streaming platforms. We’re excited to see them live ASAP and will be listing their gigs on our #ZeenagersGigGuide.
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