Polite Bureaux – Except Your Skint

There are lots of artists around who find their niche and stay there forever; fine if standing still is your thing I guess. The ones who stand out though are the ones who take some risks, buckle trends and aren’t afraid to keep moving. Over the last few years, Polite Bureaux have consistently been working on new material and tweaking their sound, and to say it’s paying off would be an understatement. As new album Except Your Skint drops this week, there are still elements of the harder-hitting earlier tracks that hit your radar full force, echoes of the Bodyrockers and Scratchcards that challenged and provoked, but the overall feel of the new record is one of reflection and stoicism – the majority of the tracks have a lighter element, equally demanding of your attention and with some quite beautiful undertones and lyrics. It could easily be a soundtrack for an independent film score – you can almost see the leading actor walking through the different scenes. Still packed with spiky cliches and idioms, a stream of rapid-fire spoken word and a brutally honest perspective of the reality of getting by in a sometimes fucked up world, this is just a great album, simple as that.

There are songs you will already know – Bradford and recent release Lidl Fiddle already receiving lots of positive reactions. BANG BANG Recycle Bin stands out loud and proud with caustic echoes of The Fall, and the title track Except Your Skint will doubtless be a crowd pleaser live. The bookends of the record are perfectly placed – opening track Where Do You Come From talks of ‘less perfect moments’ and nudges you to ‘be who you want to be’, while the final offering Local Town surveys the demise of the high street and community as it once was, ‘even the pound shop’s shut down’. If this is a soundtrack to something, then the closing episode leaves a mixture of reality, acceptance and hope nicely in place for the next series. The Polite Bureaux story is far from over yet.

From Polite Bureaux:

‘EXCEPT YOUR SKiNT poems and stories by Polite Bureaux (Release date: 30 August 2025) was written using calculator size toy-like sequencers’. The album a series of true stories written by our dad about run-ins around daily life in Bradford and a series of life’s events. The opening track is like an introduction to a book as the story of the stories, the track ‘Bradford’ begins about growing up in the City… Skint. Written and recorded over 2 years the album makes its way through life experiences, cycling proficiency gone wrong, meeting a work coach called Colin, losing teeth, buying a van that turns to dust and using the dogs shampoo when the head and shoulder’s ran out.. The stories words allow dyslexia to write it wrong making it right..! playing with the English languages quirks like irreversible binomial’s, songs sometimes cross references one another; the opening track to the album ‘Where do you come from’ and ‘another tooth quit’ are written using idiomatic expressions and all with a certain northernness..’

Except Your Skint is released tomorrow, 30th August 2025 – order here

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Review by Siobhan

Published 29th August 2025