Andriy Zholob did not expect to be carrying a guitar case alongside his surgical kit. In 2022, the vocalist of the Ukrainian band Beton left the stage for the frontline, serving as a military surgeon while Russian forces advanced. He has said that he survived at least four attacks that, by his own account, he was fortunate to walk away from. Yet each evening, amid the noise of war, he and his fellow soldiers would pick up their instruments simply to breathe for a while.

When his commander granted him eight days of leave, he used them not to rest but to record a cover of the Clash's "London Calling," reworked as "Kyiv Calling," to raise funds for Ukraine's resistance. Thousands of kilometres away, in Morocco and later Spain, a singer who performs as Nao found punk rock to be a different kind of battlefield. Growing up in a Muslim community where the aesthetics of punk were seen as provocation, she hid her face at concerts to avoid being recognised and hurt. Moving to Spain brought no immediate relief; as an immigrant woman with dyed, shaved hair, she recalls being told she "loved Satan" by strangers who mistook rebellion for blasphemy.

It was hearing the British anarcho-punk band Crass at thirteen that gave her language for a feeling she already carried: resentment toward religious control over her body and voice. Today, Zholob works with veterans, many of whom attend Beton's shows, some slam-dancing on prosthetic limbs. Nao fronts Taqbir, performing across north Africa and the UK, turning fury into something like release.