Grail Guard see the present UK as a mirror of punk’s early days. Nearly 50 years on, the problems that shaped the scene remain stubbornly familiar.

Frontman and lyricist Riaz isn’t dealing in abstraction. His words come from lived experience, shaped by growing up as a British, Indian Muslim in a working-class Midlands town, where racism wasn’t theoretical—it was part of everyday life. “I went to a predominantly white school, and I was one of only a handful of people of color,” he says. “On top of that, I was regularly seeing things like the National Front marching through town. That kind of environment stays with you.”

Grail Guard’s debut album, Still No Future, is grounded in lived experience. The record draws a straight line from the late 1970s, when punk emerged amid political unrest, to today’s rise of far-right movements, misinformation, and economic inequality. For Riaz, the world now feels much like it did then...