The Mistakes - Die Laughing (2026) Hi-Res

South coast punks The Mistakes once again make no mistake with their fifth studio album. Die Laughing is brash, raw and electrifying, says Neil Crud. Bang! An East Bay Ray Dead Kennedys-style guitar summons you into battle – as The Mistakes stamp their authority over all your attention. The battle cry is loud enough and fierce enough to summon the dead. The opening song Battle gets things moving with precisely the subtlety you might expect from the title. It’s fast, riff-heavy and confrontational, immediately establishing the record’s political and social bite. There’s anger here, but it’s rarely the po-faced variety. The Mistakes understand that their music works best when the message comes wrapped in a chorus you can yell at the top of your lungs.

Die Laughing, the fifth studio album from the Poole-based streetpunk stalwarts, is not a happy record: it’s a bittersweet catharsis. The music forms a protective uplifting buffer around the heavy lyrics, engaging empathy and reflection to create a rich, multi-layered emotional experience of existential dread. Set that aside for the lead single, Life’s Too Short – this surfaced earlier this year, and I cannot stop playing it, singing it, humming it. It’s such a brilliant song, right up there with the best ever written by anyone – ever.