Bad Breeding

Stevenage, England—the inaugural planned community designated under the 1946 New Town Act—gave rise to Bad Breeding, a four-piece anarcho-punk outfit whose lacerating bursts of raw punk channel the foundational British acts Crass, Rudimentary Peni, and Flux of Pink Indians. Chris Dodd on vocals, Matt Toll on guitar, Charlie Rose on bass, and Ashlea Bennett on drums launched the band in 2013, drawing initial impetus from their collective fury, the town’s geographic detachment, and the wider political climate gripping the U.K. and beyond. Their opening release, Burn This Flag, surfaced the next year on HateHateHate Records. Uncompromising stage intensity quickly earned notice, prompting support slots alongside Eagulls plus self-booked headline performances. Later in 2014 the group parted ways with external imprints to issue the follow-up single Chains independently, moving copies through online auction platforms. European dates supporting Royal Blood occupied much of 2015, interspersed with extensive U.K. gigs while the quartet tracked material for its first album. That self-released, self-titled debut arrived in April 2016; festival appearances filled the summer before a headline tour commenced. In 2017 the band aligned with Hackney-based punk imprint La Vida Es Un Mus and U.S. label Iron Lung to deliver the second full-length Divide. Relentless road work persisted through the remainder of the year. Entering 2018, Bad Breeding announced its signing to One Little Indian, an imprint originally founded by participants in assorted first-wave anarcho-punk ensembles and therefore an apt home. One month afterward the group issued its debut EP for the label, Abandonment.