Bruise Control Return With ‘If Yr Not Mine’ and a Self-Titled EP
Sitting somewhere between 00s indie sleaze and 80s hardcore abrasion, Manchester quartet Bruise Control have built a reputation the old-fashioned way: self-produced releases, sweat-drenched gigs and songs that cut straight to the nerve. Today they release their self-titled EP, alongside the lyric video for new single ‘If Yr Not Mine’ — a track that distils their wired intensity into two-and-a-half minutes of clenched-teeth catharsis.
Formed by Niall Griffin (guitar), Ru Gilfillan (bass) and Tommy Victor Morris (drums), and fronted by the unfiltered presence of Jim Taylor, Bruise Control deal in hook-heavy indie-punk delivered with hardcore urgency. It’s sharp, physical music — restless and immediate — mirroring the tension stitched through Taylor’s lyrics.
A Sound Fueled by Pressure
Bruise Control is a record born out of strain — social, financial, emotional — and the need to expel it before it curdles. Across its six tracks, the band wrestle with apathy, anger and survival in a world that feels transactional to the bone.
Opener Be Like You captures reckless abandon, a reminder that blowing off steam with your mates still counts for something. Left Behind, written after the loss of Manchester’s Brunswick Mill rehearsal space, channels grief for eroding creative communities into explosive rhythm and bite.
Elsewhere, Gone To Ground grapples with the impossible balance of modern life, while If You’re Not Mine and Spinners Mill simmer with frustration — rising rents, stretched relationships, emotional labour and the quiet guilt of barely staying afloat.
Closing track Jumping Ship doesn’t fantasise about escape; it exhales. It’s the weary desire to step off the treadmill, even briefly, when nothing around you seems to shift.
‘If Yr Not Mine’ Channels Everyday Fury
Speaking on the new single, vocalist Jim Taylor explains the emotional engine behind it:
“If Yr Not Mine is another sense of apathy and anger at day to day life. It’s near impossible to go about a daily task without getting wound up or annoyed at something cause absolutely everything has turned into one giant squeeze – from balancing finding time to see friends and family, trying to keep happy in a job which helps pay increasing bills and rents, trying to help out people who are in need of it, or feeling guilty that its hard to help others out because I’m struggling so much to keep afloat myself.”
That tension — between compassion and exhaustion, hope and burnout — drives the EP’s pulse. Bruise Control don’t offer solutions. They offer movement.
Built for the Stage
That urgency has already earned the band tour slots alongside Amyl & The Sniffers, Spiritual Cramp, Press Club, The Dirty Nil and Civic, as well as appearances at key UK festivals including 2000 Trees Festival, Bearded Theory, Dot To Dot Festival, The Great Escape, Rebellion Festival and Manchester Punk Festival.
Now they take the chaos on the road themselves.
UK Headline Tour Dates
MARCH
05: YORK Fulford Arms
06: SHEFFIELD Hallamshire Hotel
07: MARGATE Where Else?
08: TUNBRIDGE WELLS Forum Basement
09: READING Facebar
11: LONDON Victoria Arms
12: KINGSTON Fighting Cocks
14: NEWPORT Le Pub
15: EXETER Cavern
19: HULL Polar Bear
20: EDINBURGH Legends
21: BIRKENHEAD Navigations Festival
JUNE (with The Dirty Nil)
27: BIRMINGHAM Castle & Falcon
29: BRISTOL Exchange
30: NOTTINGHAM Bodega
JULY (with The Dirty Nil)
01: LONDON 100 Club
03: BRIGHTON Green Door Store
04: MANCHESTER Rebellion
05: GLASGOW King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut
07: LEEDS Key Club
08: 2000 Trees Festival
Bruise Control’s self-titled EP is out now.
