London-based DIY punk supergroup YAKKIE have been making waves in the underground, selling out every show they’ve played to date, and now they’ve announced they’ll be self-releasing their debut album Kill The Cop Inside Your Head on February 13. Alongside the announcement comes the unleashing of the record’s title track, out now, on Bandcamp only. A rousing, rallying cry, ‘Kill The Cop Inside Your Head’ kicks off the album’s proceedings with strong intent. Vocalist Janey Starling explains:

“This is a song against self-defeat. The cop in your head will talk you out of your own power before you’ve had a chance to taste it. He wants your despair to calcify into defeat so you roll over for fascism and tell yourself there’s nothing anyone could have done to stop it. He tells you that there’s no practical alternative to this soul-sucking meat grinder that is late capitalism. If you don’t kill the cop inside your head, you will become him.

“The concept of the ‘cop in the head’ comes from the anti-fascist Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal. Boal believed that theatre is a ‘rehearsal for the revolution’ and ‘the cop in the head’ is a theatre game that allows people to identify and give a voice to their internalised oppressions in order to overcome them.

“If we want a better world, we must first be able to imagine one. To do that, we have to kill the cop inside our head. Go to the protest! Join your union!”