The Spitters: Toulon’s four-headed garage-punk grind their teeth on ‘Fake Brutal’

If you came up on punk as a promise rather than a playlist, you know the feeling: the best bands don’t “develop a sound” so much as they sharpen a weapon. The Spitters, a garage-punk band out of Toulon in southern France, have spent the last decade doing exactly that, flinging short songs like lit matches and somehow keeping the burn marks melodic. They describe themselves as an “explosive meeting” of four temperaments from Toulon.

Their new album Fake Brutal lands as a statement of intent and a course correction at the same time. It’s 13 tracks, released on 14 November 2025, and it moves with the kind of tight-hipped urgency that suggests a band sick of its own comfort. The titles read like a scuffed knuckle: “You And I”, “Don’t Be Stupid”, “Fake Brutal”, “Demon’s Call”, “Superstar”, “Up N Down”. And yes, they’ve already been drip-feeding the chaos: “Demon’s Call” (June 2025) and “Superstar” (September 2025) hit ahead of the album, and “Up N Down” arrived with a fresh video push.

The Spitters aren’t pretending this is a reinvention-from-scratch. They’re clear that the new record is a logical step, not a betrayal. But it is a deliberate refusal to cosplay their own past. On the previous album, they recorded to a 12-track tape machine, leaning into a punk ’77 grain and a deliberately rough edge. This time, the mission was to modernise the sonics without sanding off the “garage” DNA that makes them feel dangerous in the first place. That tension, polish versus splinter, is where Fake Brutal lives.

“Fake Brutal”: cleaner, meaner, and still ready to blow a fuse

The album’s backstory is a neat snapshot of how scene chemistry still matters in an age of remote everything. The band have said a turning point came after meeting UK band Bad Nerves in Paris in October 2023, which helped shape the new record’s direction. They ended up working with Bad Nerves’ Mike Curtis on mixing, with mastering credited to Christian Wright at Abbey Road. Recorded with Fabien Camoin at Studio 18 in Hyères, the credits read like a band intentionally stepping into a bigger room, then immediately scuffing the walls.

And the sound follows: tighter low end, sharper corners, hooks that don’t ask permission. The press materials around Fake Brutal talk about new influences folding into their garage-punk base. You can hear that as a kind of controlled volatility: songs that keep their hands on the wheel, then yank it at the last second just to see if you’re awake.

Toulon, not Paris: why France’s punk map matters right now

There’s a lazy myth in English-language coverage that “French rock” is either chic and detached or stuck in a nostalgic loop. The reality is messier and better. Over the past few years, UK outlets have started paying attention to a new wave of French punk with a distinctly local voice, including an Oi!-leaning “Cold Oi” strain where bands blend working-class bite with colder, post-punk atmospheres.

The Spitters sit adjacent to that conversation without being contained by it. They’re not trying to sound like Paris. They sound like a port city band that learned to play fast in small rooms, then learned to write choruses because the best punk has always been pop music with bruises. Even their scene résumé reads like the old model of doing it the hard way: they’ve been touring for years and have shared stages with names as large as The Hives, Ty Segall, and Suicidal Tendencies, according to French scene profiles.

If you want the quick context: Fake Brutal is their latest full-length, following a Bandcamp discography that tracks from Crazy (2014) through Movement (2016), Critical Strike (2018), and Kitty Brain (2022). That run matters because it shows a band building a catalogue, not a moment.

The interview.

Below, The Spitters talk like a band that actually rehearses, actually argues, and actually cares about the difference between “clean” and “dead.” I’ve rearranged their answers into a flow that matches how Fake Brutal hits: sound first, then risk, then the worldview underneath.

1) What did you refuse to repeat from the last record?

They wanted to modernise. Not by abandoning the garage core, but by pulling the sound into the present. The last album was cut on a 12-track tape recorder, a conscious nod to punk ’77. This time, new references demanded a new approach. For them, both records are the same journey, just different chapters.

2) Was the bigger fear sounding too clean, or repeating yourselves?

Neither, they insist. They hate monotony and actively try not to repeat themselves, so they don’t fear “clean” as an abstract. The real fear is stagnation, and they’d rather risk change than get trapped in a loop.

3) So what did you “mess up” on purpose in the studio?

They aimed for a more polished production, then planted moments that are intentionally “explosive,” right on the edge of dissonance. Think of it as a well-lit room with a loose wire sparking in the corner.

4) What was the riskiest decision you made on this album?

Not the mix, not the tempo, but the image. They initially planned cover art featuring a child with a slightly bruised face and a forced smile to mirror the album’s lyrical themes. After reflection and advice from people close to them, they scrapped it and chose something more metaphorical instead.

5) Any lyric you almost cut because it was too personal or too direct?

No. They’re fully aligned with the words and the ideas behind them. For The Spitters, personal lyrics are baked in: the songs are built from daily anecdotes and the emotions attached to them. That intimacy is part of the band’s backbone, not a new confession.

6) What’s eating at you in 2025, and how do you stop righteous anger turning into plain old cynicism?

They’re angry about the lack of depth and sincerity they see in parts of music culture: more “appearance” and performance, less authenticity. They’re careful not to generalise because plenty of bands are pushing new ideas that genuinely help music move forward. But the balance feels off. That’s the line in the sand: not purity, but sincerity.

7) In rehearsal, what do you fight about most: politics, tempo, or setlist?

Tempo, easily. They work hard not to speed up. Any band that plays fast knows that battle: adrenaline is a drug, and the click track is the cold shower.

8) When was the last time you seriously thought the band might implode, and what stopped it?

They say they’re tightly bonded, especially when things get complicated. Like any group, they have discord, but they share a common goal: to “blow everything up” with this band. The argument isn’t the danger, it’s the commitment to the same target.

9) What do you want from your audience right now: screaming, thinking, getting hurt in the pit, contradicting you?

They want a big party. Not in the empty “good vibes” sense, but in the punk sense: sweat, volume, bodies moving, the room turning into something bigger than the band.

10) What does “being punk” mean to you, concretely, right now?

For them: avoiding discrimination and opening your arms wide to every community. Punk as refusal of exclusion, not just a uniform.

11) Which contradiction do you accept: making a living in a system you criticise, working with brands, relying on platforms?

Platforms, without hesitation. They’re blunt about the problems: artist pay, dubious funding, all of it. But platforms remain close to indispensable for music promotion right now, whether you like it or not.

12) What industry advice did you get that you chose to ignore?

“Write a slow song so you can have a hit.” Not for them. The polite version is “we’ll pass.” The real version is laughter.

13) If this record were a drunk 3 a.m. voice note, what would it say?

“Big afterparty.” That’s it. Two words that smell like spilled beer and reckless joy.

14) What’s the worst possible review of this album, the one that would actually hurt because it might be true?

“Guys… you’re going soft.” That’s the nightmare critique, because it hits the exact nerve they’re trying to protect.

Where you can actually catch them: no myths, just dates

If you want proof this album isn’t just a digital drop, the local circuit tells you plenty. The Spitters were on the bill for Rade Side in Toulon, playing Le Live on Friday 14 November 2025 alongside Bryan’s Magic Tears and Technopolice. The festival’s post-event write-up describes the room vibrating and lists The Spitters among the acts that lit it up.

Beyond Toulon, listings show them taking the album on the road: Bandsintown, for example, posted a Bordeaux date at Go girls on 8 December 2025, explicitly framing it as part of the Fake Brutal live run. Their own Facebook page has also teased “new shows added” around early December in Spain (Zaragoza, Pamplona, Santander), signalling a wider push even when aggregator sites lag behind.

Ending where punk actually lives: the festival surge and the stubborn joy of noise

If you want to understand why bands like The Spitters feel necessary right now, look at how punk and hardcore keep erupting inside the biggest live gatherings, not just the small clubs. Hellfest 2025 expected close to 280,000 attendees over four days, and the paper-of-record coverage still singled out the “Warzone” arena as the punk-hardcore battleground, describing sets that “turned everything over” and the late-night crush for modern hardcore headliners. And when you’re documenting that chaos for your own zine, your band page, or a tour recap, photo filters can be a practical ally, lifting harsh shadows and muddy stage lighting so the sweat, the faces, and the room actually read the way they felt.

That’s the point: punk doesn’t survive by staying pure. It survives by staying physical, by moving through festivals and sweaty rooms, by letting new generations collide with old riffs and come out with something sharper. In that churn, Fake Brutal makes sense. It’s not nostalgia. It’s a band insisting that the only acceptable polish is the kind that makes the knife cut deeper.