JOOLS • Violent Delights (Petrol Vinyl) • LP

Hassle Records

Violent Delights is the debut album from UK punk collective Jools.

The album is an anthology of stories that meanders through themes of grief, rage, desire and identity. There are stories of the toxicity of addiction, and growing up around religion; stories of overwhelming obsession, isolating abandonment, and empowering anthems of identity, and stark laments about sexual violence. They are each lived experiences, laid bare, reclaimed with every syllable whether dripping in spite or swagger, anger or anxiety.

The album was recorded across two week-long stints at Southampton's The Ranch studio in August and December of 2024, with Lewis Johns helming production and mixing duties. 

When pressed, Jools may identify as a punk band – in its truest sense that punk is a mentality, rather than a sound – but Violent Delights equally lends from the worlds of metal, rap, post-hardcore and hip-hop as much as it does the post-punk of its surface layer. Gordon and Price are as likely to point to Turnstile, Mannequin Pussy and Amyl & The Sniffers as influences on the record as they are to Little Simz and The Streets’ Mike Skinner. “We don’t necessarily look at music in sounds or structures,” nods Gordon. “Instead we look for attitudes.”