London’s Barking Poets have been quietly building something since their 2021 debut mini-album Back to Abnormal, recorded with producer Paul Tipler, whose credits include Idlewild, Placebo, and Reuben. The band went through a lineup shift in 2022 when lead guitarist Neil Murray stepped into the frontman role, and the current three-piece, Murray on vocals and guitar, Conor Thomas on bass and backing vocals, and Conor Heary on drums, has been the configuration ever since. “Modern War” is the opening track from their third EP, The Red EP, again produced by Tipler at Unit 13 Studios in South London and released via Engineer Records on April 8th, 2026.
Their sound is like Motown meets The Beatles meets The Ramones, and while that may sound like a lot to hold in one song, Barking Poets pull it off with a sprinkle of punk swagger that makes the whole thing tasty rather than a forced amalgam. The track moves with urgency and purpose from the first bar, and the moment it really becomes memorable is the musical interlude: a huge lead-guitar sound carving out a hook that is immediately singable and hard to shake. That’s a rare quality in punk-adjacent music, where energy often substitutes for melody rather than serving it. Here, both are present in a more or less equal measure.
Lyrically, the song nods to Huxley, asking whether we’re already living inside the dystopia that was supposed to be fiction, which is exactly the kind of question that lands differently in 2026 than it might have a decade ago. The band doesn’t belabor the point; they state it and let the music carry the weight. As an opener for the EP, it does its job immediately and completely, and as a standalone single, it’s one of the stronger things this band has put out. Worth keeping an eye on what the rest of The Red EP delivers.
