Panic
Shack
“Grin & Bear It” is out now — and Cardiff’s most gloriously chaotic punk quintet are about to tear through North America for the first time, with Sex Pistols support dates, CBGB Festival, and a summer of global chaos still to come.
Panic Shack built their following the way it actually sticks — not through a major label campaign or a viral moment engineered by a marketing team, but through relentless live shows, word of mouth, and a reputation for being the most fun band in any room they walked into. Their self-titled debut, released last July on Brace Yourself Records, entered the UK Albums Chart at #32 and hit #1 on the Downloads Chart and Rock & Metal Albums Chart. Now they’re back with “Grin & Bear It,” a new single produced by Ross Orton — the man behind records by Arctic Monkeys, Amyl & the Sniffers, and Yard Act — and a North American headline tour that kicks off June 9th in Washington, DC.
For indie and unsigned artists paying attention, the Panic Shack story is instructive: five women from Cardiff who formed in 2018 as a deliberate middle finger to the gatekeeping culture of indie and punk, built everything on the live circuit, and watched it snowball into Jools Holland, Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds, and now a summer supporting The Sex Pistols across two continents. The music industry still works that way, when the songs and the shows are good enough.
“Within about 10 seconds of Panic Shack’s debut album erupting in your earlobes, you know this band is The Real Deal.”— Clash Magazine
The Song That Almost Didn’t Make It
“Grin & Bear It” has a history. The track nearly appeared on the debut album but got cut — the band felt it lacked the grit it deserved. It spent months being reworked in whatever gaps they could find between day jobs and gigs, before finally coming together with producer Ross Orton in the studio. “It almost made it onto our debut album, but it just wasn’t where it needed to be,” the band explain. “We really clicked with Ross in the studio and are super proud of what the track has become; it sounds massive.”
The lyrical core came from vocalist Sarah Harvey’s notes — words scribbled on scrap paper during a long, lonely night shift in 2023. That origin gives the track a grounded, working-life fury that fits perfectly in Panic Shack’s world: righteous anger delivered with a grin, buzzsaw guitars, and the kind of energy that makes you want to quit your job and start a band. Which, for unsigned artists reading this, is more or less the point.
The accompanying music video was shot entirely by the band themselves during their recent headline German tour — every graffitied wall, every green room, every monument used as a lip-sync backdrop. DIY in the truest sense, and all the better for it.
“Their world is one that mixes brilliant, hedonistic fun with righteous anger, all told through hugely fun punk songs that present a proper gang.”— Rolling Stone UK
From Cardiff to Every Continent
The North American headline tour launches June 9th at The Atlantis in Washington, DC, and runs through June 29th at Zebulon in Los Angeles — hitting Philadelphia, New York’s Mercury Lounge, Chicago, Denver, Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and more along the way. It’s the band’s first time headlining North America, and it arrives on the back of a debut album cycle that also saw them play Brixton Electric in London and The Great Hall in Cardiff for their biggest headline shows to date.
September brings the Sex Pistols support run: Dallas, Austin, Houston, Nashville, Kansas City, Toronto, Montreal, and a string of Canadian dates — plus the CBGB Festival in New York on September 26th. Back in the UK and Europe, the summer includes Green Man Festival, Latitude, Boomtown, Summerfest in Milwaukee, and an opening slot for the Super Furry Animals in Llangollen. This is a band operating at full momentum.
BBC 6 Music playlisted three singles from the debut — “Gok Wan,” “Girl Band Starter Pack,” and “Thelma & Louise” — and the band recorded a session for Huw Stephens before making their national TV debut on Later With… Jools Holland in November 2025. The Guardian, NME, Kerrang, and Rolling Stone UK have all weighed in. The critical infrastructure is there. Now it’s about the rooms.
“Boys make it look so hard. Whenever I see someone on the floor fiddling with their pedals with a face like a slapped arse, I think, you’re making this look so unattainable, and it’s actually so fucking easy.”— Em Smith, Panic Shack
Full Tour Itinerary — 2026
Panic Shack are proof that building it the right way — live, loud, and on your own terms — still works. “Grin & Bear It” is the sound of a band who refused to rush it and came back with something that sounds, in their own words, massive. If you’re anywhere near the North American tour dates this June, go.
