A cathartic triumvirate of punk, rock and rap, Manchester’s TOKEO hail not from the craft beer bars and gleaming tower blocks of the increasingly gentrified city centre, but from the forgotten mill towns several miles north. More specifically, Rochdale. Fittingly, their music is also a far cry from the predictable indie that populates much of said city centre’s venues. Instead, TOKEO harbour an aggressive edge and a bleakness that could only stem from growing up in an area in decline, where the main incomes are government handouts and criminality. Optimism is in short supply and the only hope for the towns’ youth is to get out and stay out. Old curses and old wounds fester. Where the future was once made now only ruins remain. Indeed, the band’s latest single ‘I.A.F.D’ is three minutes of angular and aggressive post-punk that clatters and careens towards its conclusion much like the central figure of the track’s narrative. “The name of this song compares people who use cocaine in pubs to human dodgems, navigating a night out bumping into different social situations” explains vocalist Rory Kelly.. “Whenever we play this song live I always quote that, “Some of us know this person, some of us have seen this person and some of us have been this person”. This is why the lyrics of this song cover the internal monologue of someone finding themselves in a cycle of self destruction brought on by an inability to find their purpose or place in the world.” “We hope that people can find a little bit of themselves within this track, as unsympathetic as we have written the central character of this song. The concepts of self sabotage and having a lack of purpose are ideas we believe all have, or will experience at some point in our lives. As with many of the songs we create, we find often the most interesting and entertaining perspectives are the most chaotic.” Indeed, it’s a familiar concept for anyone who’s been on a night out in any given provincial UK town, yet it’s one that TOKEO deliver with such aggression and conviction that it’s impossible to ignore. | 
