21 September 2026 – Nekra Waste No Time on Is It Really Living?

Nekra are not interested in overstaying their welcome. Is It Really Living?, the UK punk band's proper follow-up to their 2020 La Vida Es Un Mus EP, delivers five songs in roughly eight minutes — which is barely enough time for a streaming service to ask whether you're still listening.

The economy suits them. Punk has never required a stopwatch to prove intensity, and Nekra's approach understands that a short record can still leave bruises. The release has attracted fresh critical attention this week precisely because it feels concentrated rather than incomplete. After a six-year gap between substantial releases, there might have been a temptation to return with something sprawling. Instead, Nekra have apparently chosen the musical equivalent of kicking the door open, making the point and leaving before anybody locates the security deposit.

That concision also places Is It Really Living? comfortably within the band's existing relationship with underground punk rather than repositioning them for some imagined mainstream breakthrough. For listeners tired of albums that behave like endurance events, five tracks in eight minutes sounds almost revolutionary. More importantly, brevity only works when there is enough character inside it to make replaying the record preferable to wishing it were longer. Nekra seem perfectly happy to make that trade.