Problem Patterns are not here to make life easy for themselves, their listeners, or the music industry that has long overlooked bands like them. Their new EP, Boring Songs for Boring People (September 12), turns fatigue, frustration, and absurdity into fuel for some of their sharpest work yet.
Coming off the momentum of their Northern Ireland Music Prize winning debut Blouse Club, the Belfast quartet could have coasted. Instead, they doubled down on honesty and experimentation.
Drummer and vocalist Bethany Crooks says,
Nothing about this EP was really ‘intentional’ apart from trying to make a freaky lil record.
That spontaneity bleeds through every track. From the sarcastic bite of “Bone Idle” to the raw exhaustion behind “I’m Fine and I’m Doing Great,” the EP captures the contradiction of punk as both a survival mechanism and creative outlet.
What makes Boring Songs for Boring People a wonderful listen is its willingness to pull the curtain back. Ciara King, guitars and vocals, frames the record’s title as equal parts jab and self-deprecation. That sense of humour coexists with real vulnerability, especially in the songs written collectively with each member bringing lyrics and ideas to the table.
One of the EP’s surprises comes with “Sad Old Woman,” featuring Matt Korvette of Pissed Jeans, whose late-night vocal track sent the band “geeking out,” as Ciara recalls. It’s a moment that embodies the record’s chaotic energy of chance encounters, unexpected collaborations, and a refusal to stay in one lane.
Beyond the riffs and sarcasm, there’s a pointed critique of the music industry running through the EP. It’s this tension between joy and exhaustion and art and industry that powers the record. Rather than mask the burnout, Problem Patterns scream through it by finding release in chaos and connection.
With Boring Songs for Boring People, Problem Patterns prove they’re still a band for the outsiders, the bored, the overworked, the ones screaming instead of giving up. It’s furious, funny, and fiercely human.
