Bad Breeding return in defiant form with Survival, the fierce first single from forthcoming album Contempt

(Image credit: Cole Quirke)

Bad Breeding have shared the first single from their forthcoming fifth album Contempt, set for release on June 14 via One Little Independent Records (UK) and Iron Lung Records (US).

The uncompromising Survival is described "key to the record's themes: that only an organised response from workers can prevent the ecological collapse of the planet."

In reference to the album title, vocalist Christopher Dodd explains, “Capital and its bourgeois foot soldiers hold nothing but contempt for working people and it’s in that contempt we can find solidarity with one another. Whatever story gets sold and packaged, contempt guides every move of the capitalist class. We see it every day - unspeakable destruction from war and government-sponsored genocide, exploitation of workers and the very gutting of the planet we live on. Only when we realise and utilise the utter contempt held for us can we reach a level of class consciousness that will provide an adequate challenge to capital.”

Listen to Survival below:

The follow up to 2022's Human Capital, which was hailed as one of the best punk records of that year by Louder, Contempt was recorded/produced by Ben Greenberg at Chapel Studios in Alford.

Artist and anti-war campaigner Peter Kennard provided the album's cover art alongside a selection of images in the album’s zine and inserts. Described by the late John Pilger as ranking among the most important of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, Kennard’s art has been hailed for holding a mirror to the wars waged against humanity, and informing the visual culture of conflict and crisis in modern history.

Bad Breeding have also lined up a series of spring gigs, including two shows supporting Botch in the UK.

They will play:

Mar 21: Bristol Marble Factory, UK (supporting Botch)
Mar 23: London Electric Ballroom, UK (supporting Botch)
May 09: Charleroi Le Vecteur, BEL
May 10: Eindhoven Stroomhuis, HOL
May 11: Hamburg Hafengeburtstag, GER
May 12: Copenhagen Ungdomshuset, DEN
May 13: Oslo Vaterland, NOR
May 14: Gothenburg DDRK, SWE
May 15: Stockholm Hus 7, SWE
May 17: Helsinki Sonic Rites Festival, FIN
May 18: Tallinn Close-Up Båten, EST
May 19: Kaunas Lemmy Bar, LIT
May 20: Vilnius XI20, LIT
May 21: Warsaw ADA Puławska, POL
May 22: Berlin Obergeschoss Hell, GER
May 23: Numberg Desi, GER
May 24: The Hague Sniester Festival, HOL
May 25: Hasselt Farrm, BEL

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.