Grading English Teacher: first class honours.

One of our writers went to see English Teacher at NX!

Martha Nugent
10th December 2025
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, English Teacher performing at ESNS24, photographed by Stef van Oosterhout https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Having previously been introduced to the Leeds-based band English teacher through their opening performance for Fontaines DC in exhibition park, I all but launched myself at the opportunity to see this band live again, and they did not disappoint. This band forces even the most rhythmically challenged into a toe tap, a head bob, and consequently, an inevitable obsession with their new album “This could be Texas” released in April of last year.  

On the 18th of November, the band revealed a combination of poetic and political messaging blended with energetic and uplifting rock as I found myself physically shutting my mouth closed after the lead singer Lily's rendition of “Albert Road”; a beautifully written ballad yet hints of indie rock depicting Lily's own experience of having an emotional attachment and ties to where she grew up, yet still managing to poetically criticise the prejudice in which she faced which forced her to lack the same attachment to her hometown as her peers. 

As a crowd, a pin could be heard falling. We were transformed, absorbed and collectively taken on a journey of highs and lows ranging from the transformative “you blister my paint” where Lily explores a volatile yet simultaneously beautiful relationship, to the upbeat and my own personal favourite tune  “I'm not crying, you're crying” in which one can't resist a dance along, limbs forced into a rhythmic bop. 

Forming in 2020 whilst studying at Leeds conservatoire, the band has been widely acclaimed for their newest album which featured in their show, Lily's ethereal vocals highlighted through the entire show.  Yet just as we were set to leave, the band included an encore which a melancholy cover of Billie Eilish's “Birds of a Feather” and finally ending with “A55” 

I and the audience left truly in awe- and perhaps a larger obsession grown, perhaps a little bit in love.  

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