Comfort on new album What’s Bad Enough?

It’s not a revelation to say that things feel particularly broken at the moment. From the spread of exclusionary politics and right wing hatred to the literal destruction of the planet and rise of a capitalist-tinged survival of the fittest, it can all get a bit much. But with everything feeling so ludicrously and laughably bad so much of the time, you can’t help but ask: what next? Where do we go from here?

“It’s a question that I've felt was really relevant with the sociopolitical landscape of Britain and Scotland,” Comfort’s Natalie McGhee explains, referring to the question at the heart of the band’s upcoming new LP What’s Bad Enough? “It was also a personal question because I've struggled a lot throughout my life with mental health and I think a lot of us, in a lot of the things we experience can put it off because we're taught if it's not a crisis, it's not a problem – you can just grin and bear it. With this album, I wanted to explore all the facets of the wider culture and myself as a person: what is bad enough? It's already at a breaking point and it still doesn't feel extreme enough to justify the mass uproar that we should be having.”

Since the release of their debut album Not Passing in 2019, the Glasgow-based sibling duo have toured extensively, developing their sound as well as their punk, no-holds-barred ethos. In their off-kilter soundscapes and empowering, abrasive vocals, the pair have settled on something that is confrontational but engaging; cheeky but full of a rebellious and provocative energy that is easy to get behind.

“I guess it's really angry in a lot of ways,” Natalie says of the new album, “but also defiant because it's about knowing that you are worth more than that. And it's about the struggle of accepting your worth. It’s about accepting that if you've got breath in your lungs, you are worth it. And that should be enough.”

What’s Bad Enough? traverses numerous themes that feel eerily timely and relevant, from trans rights to growing intolerance. But as Natalie’s brother and Comfort's drummer Sean notes, it sadly epitomises how little has changed. “It's funny, because we recorded it almost two years ago now,” he says. “Loads of people, with singles like Real Woman especially, were like, did you time this to come out right now with the gender reform controversy? But no, we recorded it years ago, it's just that these issues are persisting, and they've gotten worse across the board.”

In the self-produced music video for lead single Real Woman, Natalie dances boldly around Glasgow in black and white, singing along to biting lyrics like ‘Your prejudice is not my problem / What world are you living in? / Gender a car before a person’. At one point, she humorously lifts her top up to reveal JK Rowling’s face covering her nipples. “It felt like one of the more accessible ones, because it is angry, but it's also quite cheeky,” Natalie explains. “And we also just knew that we could make a banging video for it. We quite early had the idea for the JK Rowling covered nipples. It just felt natural because it's quite a strong statement and says quite a lot about who we are as a band.”

“It kind of encapsulates the jump from our last record too, which was basically like a demo that we did really DIY,” Sean adds. “This was obviously in a proper studio, and it's embracing a lot of more pop and hip-hop influences, which are big influences on the band.”

As well as adopting these influences in a much bigger way, What’s Bad Enough? signals the duo’s leap in confidence and overall drive towards a version of self-acceptance. For Natalie, this comes in the form of being able to explore the more beautiful side of things, as well as the negative. “I don't want to just be a one-dimensional writer that only writes about one thing, because life is just not like that. I can be very self-doubting and hard on myself. So you just sort of come around more to the idea that you're not terrible at what you do and then that leads you to having the courage to experiment more and try more things.”

Sean admits that it’s taken them a few years to get to this point but the journey is something they’re proud of and this sense of freedom and rejection of others’ standards permeates clearly throughout What’s Bad Enough? And of the future of Comfort? “We're hoping to get straight back in the studio as soon as possible – keep building things, keep playing further away from home,” he says.

“Yeah just keep playing, keep writing and regardless of the outcome, just to not let anything affect that passion we have for expressing ourselves,” Natalie continues. “I truly believe creativity is a function of being alive. It’s such a privilege to keep doing it with someone you really care about. It’s about having as close to a banger of a life as you can in what is the absolute rubble of society right now, and helping people, helping each other. Hopefully, our music just continues to reach out and make people feel less alone.”

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What's Bad Enough? is released on 5 May via FatCat Records
Comfort play Conroy's Basement, Dundee, 12 May; The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow, 13 May; Leith Depot, Edinburgh, 14 May; Kelburn Garden Party, 1 Jul