Benefits - Constant Noise (Invada Records) 
Release Date: Out Now
I admit I was a little nervous about listening to this new album from Teesside duo Benefits because I have recently found myself going down too many rabbit holes online trying to stay aware and engaged with the horrors all around us. You see, Benefits are the kind of band we need right now, the kind of band who hold a mirror up to society and then smash it over our heads until we wake up but that isn't always what you want in your music. Well, I'm going in, I'm taking my medicine - join me if you dare...
'Constant Noise' opens with a title track and the isolated words "I'm looking up in awe at a mountain of shit" and we're off on a bleak but somehow grounding spoken word delivery atop the mournful and broken vocal harmonies that provide the bed for our dreams to die on. 'Land Of The Tyrants' picks up the baton but this time there's an early New Order beat and a heartbeat bass line that adds some urban energy to the black silhouette skyline. On 'The Victory Lap' the pair take on the ridiculousness of British celebrations around football, royal family inspired parties or just a heatwave mixed with offers on booze at the corner shop. A punk energy suddenly explodes on 'Lies And Fear' with 107 seconds of an assault on the senses which should perhaps be played on a loop at every British airport arrivals lounge before 'Missiles' takes us on a somber electro pilgrimage through a futuristic hellscape set in the present.
For sure, this isn't a party album or likely to get a track on a Now That's What I Call Music compilation but tracks like 'Blame' are still absolute bangers, taking the spirit of Underworld and the KLF and morphing it into something more applicable to 2025. 'Continual' crackles through the airwaves like a seance via a dial up modem before 'Divide' brings back the agitated beats and takes on the common binary arguments that we are presented with every single day. Peter Doherty joins in for 'Relentless' - a sorrowful song that probably needs to description as it soundtracks another grey Thursday glued to the streamed content selected for us by an algorithm we forgot we signed up to.
The spoken word delivery returns on 'Terror Forever' but this time matched by some frantic jazz drumming and a minute's worth of online fury. By contrast, 'Dancing On The Tables' has a lively processed beat and gurning, Flat Eric-esque bass line that gives the song a different energy albeit a menacing and fear-tinged energy. The sweeping guitars of 'Everything Is Going To Be Alright' are oddly calming, like a siren song calling you to give up the fight and join the ranks of suburban keyboard warriors but we must resist, plug our ears and keep moving forwards.
Penultimate song 'The Brambles' brings back the haunting sound of lost souls from the start of the album with desolate lines like "sometimes all that comes out of my mouth is air". The album finishes with 'Burnt Out Family Home' and you get the sense the band wanted to end on something approaching positivity with a song that features an organ staggering the line between a church organ and the ones you used to hear at the seaside before all the entertainers left and all the units became tanning salons and vape shops. This album won't be for everyone but, ironically, it is about everyone. Well, almost everyone. Is this the best album of 2025? Quite possibly? Is it the most important album of 2025? Almost certainly.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/benefitstheband
Live Dates:
5+6/04 CROYDON Cro Cro Land
22/04 HEBDEN BRIGDE Trades Club
23/04 HULL Social
24/04 NOTTINGHAM Bodega
25/04 LONDON Lexington [Sold Out]
26/04 BRISTOL Louisiana
27/04 BIRMINGHAM Hare & Hounds
28/04 LEICESTER Firebug
29/04 GLASGOW Rum Shack
30/04 LEEDS Attic
01/05 MANCHESTER The White Hotel
02/05 GATESHEAD Glasshouse