Planetary Group x Impressive PR: Brighton’s Breakout Hub

The Great Escape’s reputation as a proving ground for the next wave of underground talent feels especially alive at the Secret Comedy Club this year, where Planetary Group and Impressive PR return for a third consecutive takeover that’s quietly become one of Brighton’s most essential Alternative Escape destinations. Far from a throwaway fringe event, the all-day showcase has built cult status through carefully curated lineups, sweatbox intimacy and the kind of industry buzz that usually signals future festival posters in the making. Split across afternoon and evening sessions, the event once again reflects the sharp instincts of two publicity heavyweights with a long history of championing artists before the wider industry catches up. With rumours already swirling around an unannounced “Very Special Guest,” this year’s edition promises the usual mix of beautiful chaos, discovery and breakout performances that make TGE week feel genuinely unpredictable.

MUSIC ACTS ARE AS FOLLOWS:

Fool Nelson have rapidly become one of the most talked-about names bubbling out of Australia’s indie-rock underground, and it’s easy to hear why. The Boorloo/Perth trio — two brothers and their lifelong best friend — channel the kind of ragged emotional immediacy that made early grunge and heartland indie feel vital in the first place, wrapping anxiety, longing and youthful disillusionment inside choruses engineered for sweaty festival singalongs. Their latest EP Bad Dreams balances rawness with undeniable melodic instinct, landing somewhere between cathartic garage rock and widescreen coming-of-age soundtrack. With support from BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and triple j already pushing them far beyond hometown hype, Fool Nelson arrive in the UK riding genuine momentum rather than industry invention. Meanwhile, late addition Bonnie Trash bring an entirely different shade of intensity: twin sisters Emmalia and Sarafina Bortolon-Vettor crafting gothic post-punk that feels less performative than existential. Their acclaimed album Mourning You drips with dread and decayed beauty, finding terror not in fantasy but in the brutal mundanity of modern life. Montreal duo Yoo Doo Right complete the bill with sprawling, speaker-shaking experimental rock that merges krautrock hypnosis, shoegaze density and post-rock release into something genuinely transportive. Across multiple Polaris-recognised releases, the band have refined a sound that feels both meticulously controlled and perpetually on the brink of collapse — the kind of immersive noise experience best understood at punishing live volume.

Sweet Unrest feel less like a carefully manufactured new band and more like the latest chapter in London’s long tradition of beautifully volatile guitar groups. Since emerging in 2023, the quartet have fused Strokes cool with Libertines-era disorder, bottling sharp indie-rock hooks inside songs that constantly threaten to spill apart at the seams. Their self-coined “Gritpop” tag might sound tongue-in-cheek, but it captures the tension at the centre of their music: elegance colliding headfirst with chaos. Through their increasingly notorious Sweet Spot residency at The Camden Eye, the band have cultivated the kind of grassroots momentum money can’t buy — sweat-soaked, word-of-mouth hype built one explosive Friday night at a time. Elsewhere, Joan & The Giants arrive carrying a very different emotional weight, pairing widescreen alt-pop ambition with deeply personal songwriting rooted in survival and reclamation. Frontwoman Grace Newton-Wordsworth’s raw lyricism gives the band’s towering choruses genuine gravity, helping elevate them beyond standard indie-pop catharsis into something far more human and affecting. Then there’s Sonny E, whose gloriously eccentric Cyberbilly vision feels like a transmission from an alternate future where Rockabilly collided head-on with rave culture. Equal parts retro futurist and underground lifer, Sonny channels decades of subcultural obsession into a wired, swaggering one-man performance style that sounds unlike anything else on the bill.

There’s something beautifully weightless about sundayclub’s debut album — a record that drifts between memory and immediacy with the hazy softness of a fading Polaroid. The Winnipeg duo’s self-described “dreamy, gut-punch pop” captures the emotional disorientation of early adulthood with remarkable sensitivity, layering gauzy guitars, ambient textures and Courtney Carmichael’s spectral vocals into songs that feel simultaneously fragile and cinematic. There’s an unmistakable intimacy to SUNDAYCLUB, but also a quiet confidence beneath the vulnerability, suggesting a band already fully formed in their emotional language. Elsewhere, South Yorkshire songwriter Sam Scherdel approaches indie-rock from a more grounded, soul-baring angle, pairing gravel-edged vocals with widescreen Britpop instincts and hard-earned emotional clarity. His recent material carries the weight of lived experience — songs shaped by reinvention, uncertainty and resilience rather than youthful fantasy. Then there’s Adelaide’s The Tullamarines, whose self-described “cosy-pop” offers perhaps the warmest emotional space on the lineup. Built around four distinct songwriting voices, the band turn everyday feeling into something communal and quietly restorative, making music that feels less like performance and more like companionship.

The Sick Fix sound exactly like the kind of band Britain’s guitar scene periodically coughs up when things start feeling too safe again: loud, reckless, sharp around the edges and impossible to ignore. Barely 18 months into their existence, the Manchester four-piece already carry the swagger and chemistry of a band that’s spent years sweating through tiny venues together, bottling garage-punk urgency with flashes of mod precision and indie sleaze romanticism. There are echoes of The Jam, Buzzcocks and The Libertines running through their DNA, but The Sick Fix avoid feeling like revivalists because the energy is too immediate, too young and too combustible.

Alongside them sit cult Britpop outsiders My Life Story, a band whose theatrical orchestral pop always existed slightly outside the movement they emerged from. Led by the endlessly charismatic Jake Shillingford, the group’s return feels less like nostalgia and more like reaffirmation: proof that ambitious, emotionally intelligent pop music doesn’t age when it’s built this well. Their upcoming stripped-back acoustic performance promises something especially intimate and reflective, arriving on the eve of Shillingford’s 60th birthday and celebrating a four-decade career spent refusing to compromise. Meanwhile, Welsh trio CHROMA continue to sharpen punk into a political weapon, pairing fuzzy alt-rock abrasion with direct, uncompromising social commentary. Their forthcoming album 25 Forever feels both furious and deeply human — a record wrestling with generational exhaustion, identity and survival while refusing to surrender any sense of fight.

The Sick Fix are moving with the kind of momentum that usually signals a band on the verge of exploding beyond the underground. The teenage Manchester outfit fuse old-school garage-punk attitude with indie-rock chaos, throwing together the bite of Buzzcocks, the scruffiness of early Libertines and the sneering energy of The Hives into songs that feel built for sticky floors and overcrowded rooms. Crucially, though, they’re more than just another revival act — there’s real instinct in the songwriting, especially on upcoming double A-side Shoe Shopping / Liquid Gold, where sharp hooks crash headfirst into pure teenage volatility. My Life Story, by contrast, remain gloriously singular veterans of Britain’s alternative landscape. While Britpop was busy mythologising laddish cool, Jake Shillingford’s band were crafting ornate, cinematic pop songs packed with wit, ambition and emotional complexity. Decades later, they still sound refreshingly unlike anybody else, and their latest material proves the fire hasn’t dimmed with age. Their upcoming acoustic set feels poised to highlight the emotional core beneath all the grandeur. Then there’s CHROMA — arguably one of the UK’s most vital politically charged guitar bands right now. The Welsh trio channel frustration, anger and anxiety into razor-edged alternative rock that refuses to soften its message for comfort. With 25 Forever, they sound louder, darker and more confrontational than ever, tackling misogyny, alienation and generational burnout with a level of directness most bands would never dare attempt.