We recently looked at the 50 best punk albums of 2024 (including some hardcore), and then 15 great screamo releases from this year, and now here’s a list of our favorite hardcore albums and EPs of 2024. Even with hardcore being a subgenre of a subgenre, the range of great records within hardcore that came out this year is pretty wide, from chugging metalcore to fast-paced punk to melodic hardcore to powerviolence to rapcore to genre-busting statements to unpigeonholable utter chaos. There were massive comebacks and breakout debuts and crucial supergroups. And in an era in which the hardcore scene has room for everything from death metal to shoegaze, there were still some “hardcore-adjacent” records we love that we decided to keep off this list for genre reasons, like High Vis‘ Guided Tour, Drug Church‘s Prude, and The Chisel‘s What A Fucking Nightmare, all three of which made our top 50 punk list.
And even with the wide range of records on this list, 20 is still a small number for such a big scene and there were all kinds of other paths within hardcore that you might’ve spent more time exploring this year than we did. These are just our 20 favorites. Read on for the list, in alphabetical order…
Bayway – Bayway Takes Manhattan (DAZE)
Bayway hail from NJ and make rap/hardcore crossover that’ll take fans of bands like home state heroes E.Town Concrete (whose Ant Money guested on Bayway’s 2023 LP) on a total nostalgia trip. Their new EP Friday the 13th–referencing EP Bayway Takes Manhattan sounds like a trip back to the mid ’90s, and Bayway have all the nose-bloodying toughness and brash confidence needed to pull this kind of thing off exactly as they should.
Candy – It’s Inside You (Relapse)
We’ve seen a lot of band toy with the confines of hardcore these past few years, but no one’s doing it like Candy’s doing it right now. On their third and most expansive album yet, they give you everything from straight-up hardcore punk to chugging metalcore to synths, breakbeats, and other electronics to the best and catchiest ’90s industrial rock song of 2024, “Love Like Snow.” (Candy bristle at being called “industrial” though. They prefer “hypercore.”) With a little help from their friends (including members of Angel Du$t, Fleshwater, Trash Talk, and Integrity), Candy defy expectations left and right on It’s Inside You. For 31 relentless minutes, they fit square pegs into round holes, turning unsettling moments into satisfying ones and squeezing boundless experimentation into concise bursts of rage. It pushes them further in every direction–weirder, heavier, catchier, etc–and it just never lets up.
Collateral – We Still Know (Fortress)
Good old fashioned, pissed-off, high-speed hardcore that hails from South Florida and sounds like a fresh update on mid ’80s NYHC (comparisons to bands like Agnostic Front, Outburst, and Straight Ahead are frequent and warranted). This whole EP is over and done with in nine and a half minutes, and in classic hardcore fashion, that’s more than enough time to leave a lasting impact.
Contention – Artillery From Heaven (DAZE)
Tampa’s Contention are part of a growing crop of bands bringing back the vibe of ’90s straightedge metallic hardcore (including Broken Vow, Inclination, and fellow Florida band Domain, all three of whom appear on Contention’s debut LP Artillery From Heaven), and they make it feel just like all the best bands made it feel back then. They aren’t reinventing the form, but they’re doing it extremely well, with all the chugging aggression, crisp production, underlying melodies, and endless passion you need.
Gel – Persona (Blue Grape)
The best EPs feel just as monumental as LPs, and to say that’s true of Gel’s Persona feels like an understatement. This five-song, 13-minute rager is the NJ hardcore band’s best record yet and it’s not close. These are their cleanest, catchiest, and biggest-sounding songs to date, and Gel did that without crossing over into grunge or indie rock or some other non-hardcore genre. A lot of great music has come from bands doing that, but it’s also exciting to hear a band keep pushing themselves within the confines of heavy, aggressive hardcore, and that’s exactly what Gel did on this nonstop riot of an EP.
Gouge Away – Deep Sage (Deathwish)
Not many bands come back from hiatus to release their best album yet, but not many bands are Gouge Away. Deep Sage, their third LP, delivers on every promise that its 2018 predecessor Burnt Sugar made and it sounds like the album that Gouge Away were always destined to make. It’s a hardcore album and a post-hardcore album all at once, with expansive moments that owe as much to Sonic Youth as they do to The Jesus Lizard, as well as no-nonsense rippers that go as hard as this band ever has (“Stuck In A Dream,” “Spaced Out”). Christina Michelle’s voice is as shapeshifting as the instrumentation, and she puts as much blood, sweat, and tears into her ethereal singing as she puts into her throat-shredding screams (and does it just as perfectly live). There’s no denying the absolute force of Gouge Away at their heaviest, but with the dreamy alt-rock of album closer “Dallas,” Gouge Away send us off on the album’s softest note, and it just happens to also be one of its strongest.
Haywire – Conditioned For Demolition + For Better or For Worse (DAZE)
Haywire is classic Boston hardcore, in the spirit of anything from Slapshot to The Rival Mob, and their two 2024 releases (their debut LP Conditioned For Demolition and its followup EP For Better or For Worse) is some of the most fun, no-nonsense hardcore released this year. Led by Austin Sparkman (who’s also in Buried Dreams, Conservative Military Image, and other bands), they show off a gritty toughness, a sweetly melodic side, and a ton of Boston pride. Along for the ride are guest vocals from Colin of Arabia, Chubby and the Gang, Loosey, Death Before Dishonor’s Bryan Harris, the aforementioned Conservative Military Image’s Adam Voss, and an acoustic version of “Love Song” with Mat Kerekes from Citizen and Marisa Shirar from Fleshwater that suggests Haywire could go full Gin Blossoms if they ever wanted to. It’s Austin’s project, but the way so many friends show up to bring their own unique flavors to these records, it feels like a hardcore-scene party.
The Hope Conspiracy – Tools of Oppression / Rule by Deception (Deathwish)
There are a lot of good reasons for a band to come out of hibernation, and one of the best reasons is because they’ve become so frustrated with the world that they just had to use their platform to speak up through the music. That’s exactly what The Hope Conspiracy did on their first album in 18 years, Tools of Oppression / Rule by Deception. Right from the start of the album, Kevin Baker growls that “profit is everything amidst a crumbling vial decay,” and goes on to take aim at capitalism, war profiteering, genocide, fascism, and more, before declaring that “the west is dead” on the penultimate track. It’s one of the trailblazing hardcore band’s most direct, angriest albums to date, and that’s saying something.
Kharma – A World of Our Own (Flatspot)
LP3 from Chicago’s Kharma is one of this year’s most curb-stomping hardcore records, and the head on the curb is America’s. With help from Regulate’s Sebastian Paba, and samples of civil rights activists (Fred Hampton, James Baldwin) and classic protest music (Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”), Kharma take aim at the systemic racism, corruption, and general shittiness that our country is informed and controlled by, and their response to all of it comes in the form of some of the most gut-punching metallic hardcore released all year.
Knocked Loose – You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To (Pure Noise)
Knocked Loose aren’t just one of the biggest hardcore bands in the world but one of the most chameleonic. On top of going on increasingly-large headlining tours with diverse tour packages, they’re as likely to be found opening an arena tour for Slipknot and getting the kinds of crowd reactions they’d get at their own shows as they are to turn Coachella into a hardcore show with Billie Eilish rocking out sidestage. Whether it’s Coachella or a hardcore fest, a heavy metal fest, or an emo nostalgia fest, Knocked Loose emerge as a show-stopping band with mass appeal. And they continue to do it all without ever softening up their sound one bit. This year’s You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To is one of the most brutal records of this band’s ten-plus-year career, but it’s also one of their catchiest. And it manages to be “catchy” without having a single part that would count as “clean vocals”–even when radio-friendly guests Poppy and Chris Motionless show up, they’re here to scream their heads off too. It’s an album that finds Knocked Loose walking the walk, making music that’s true to themselves that also happens to fit in so many different contexts. It’s genre-transcending without being genre-defying. It suggests that maybe Knocked Loose keep getting all these Ws because they’re just that good.
Kriegshög – Love & Revenge (La Vida Es Un Mus)
14 years after their self-titled debut album and five years after their last 7″, Japanese hardcore greats Kriegshög have finally delivered a second full-length. They’re as crusty as ever, but their high-speed D-beat is a little slower and sludgier this time around–apparently Kyuss and Sleep were influences and you can definitely hear it. That said, it’s still a heart-racing punk/hardcore record that’s over and done with in 22 minutes, and it’s a reminder of why Kriegshög felt like such a breath of fresh air for the Japanese hardcore canon in the first place.
No Cure – I Hope I Die Here (SharpTone)
Birmingham, Alabama metallic hardcore band No Cure made their SharpTone debut with I Hope I Die Here, an eight-song, guest-filled concept EP that the band call “a love letter to Alabama and the Southeastern experience.” The guests are all from bands that No Cure say have “made an undeniable mark on Alabama hardcore over the years,” including Yautja, MyChildren MyBride, Bareknuckle, Living Tragedy, Gideon, Wielded Steel, Cold Hard Steel, Wretched Blessing, Beautiful Child of God, and The Slam Brigade, and the EP finds No Cure and their guests singing (or screaming) about, in their own words, “many topics, including what it’s like to grow up under the boot of religion, fraternity culture, the dark side of a beloved landmark, local ecological exploitation, and more.” There’s a lot of purpose to these songs, and you don’t need a lyric sheet to hear it coming through.
Rejoice – All of Heaven’s Luck (Delayed Gratification)
Three years after their debut EP Damnation No Longer Hurts, Columbus, Ohio’s Rejoice finally dropped their first full-length and it’s even better and heavier than Damnation and their other early releases. They make hardcore that pulls from black metal, crust, thrash, and other darker/heavier subgenres (they’ve cited bands like Cursed, Converge, and Dead in the Dirt as influences), but they’re a punk/hardcore band through and through, from their raw energy to the anti-capitalist themes that run throughout All of Heaven’s Luck. And for as dark and evil as this album gets, it’s pretty damn fun and catchy too.
Regional Justice Center – Freedom, Sweet Freedom (Closed Casket Activities)
Ian Shelton (who’s since become best known as the leader of Militarie Gun) started the powerviolence band Regional Justice Center as a way to document his younger brother Max’s experience with prison and the justice system after being incarcerated for first degree assault, and now Max is out and he’s officially joined RFC as co-lead screamer. This version of RJC (which also has Taylor Young of Twitching Tongues/God’s Hate/etc on guitar) feels like the ultimate version of the band, with Max getting to tell his own story, with a bark that’s just as piercing as his brother’s.
SECT – Plagues Upon Plagues (Southern Lord)
No album captured the spirit of 2024 for me more than Plagues Upon Plagues, the fourth album by hardcore supergroup SECT. With a title referring to the combination of the first pandemic of our lifetimes, the political state, and the rise of fascism, vocalist Chris Colohan (also of Cursed, Left For Dead, Ruination, and more) calls the album “a funeral rather than a trial.” On this LP, SECT aren’t fighting for a better world; they’re mourning the loss of the one we’ve always known. And the band–which also includes Fall Out Boy/Racetraitor drummer Andy Hurley and members of Earth Crisis, Catharsis, Undying, Day of Suffering, and more–have crafted a backdrop of dark, sludgy hardcore that’s perfect for Colohan’s grizzled eulogy. A lot of recent albums have mirrored the unrest that’s all around us, but few evoke pure hopelessness the way this one does.
Skullpresser – Positions of Power (Born Losers)
Philly metallic hardcore supergroup Skullpresser (whose lineup includes Mannequin Pussy’s Colins “Bear” Regisford on bass/vocals, The Wonder Years’ Mike Kennedy on drums/vocals, Burdens members Jared Birdseye on lead vocals and Dan Zimmerman on guitar, and Sam Tropio of One Dead Three Wounded and No Roses on guitar) released one of the year’s most menacing political hardcore EPs with Positions of Power. Influenced by bands like Converge, Cursed, and The Hope Conspiracy, it offers up five hard-hitting songs that take aim at police violence, elected war criminals, and all types of other corruption within our political and economic systems. They sound as pissed-off and ruthless as any great political hardcore band should.
Spaced – This Is All We Ever Get (Revelation)
The title of Buffalo “far out hardcore” band Spaced’s debut LP comes from a line on its second track, “Big Picture”: “Try to make something better, but this is all we ever get.” It’s easy to interpret it as being about the state of the world lately, and the frustration in Lexi Reyngoudt’s screams is something that I’d imagine a lot of people reading this can relate to. Shit sucks, but at least we’ve got cathartic records like this one to help us let it all out. Spaced cite Gorilla Biscuits as a core influence and they’re signed to that band’s longtime, legendary home of Revelation Records, and like GB, Spaced know how to make short, fast, no-frills hardcore punk songs with an underlying sense of tuneful songcraft. Their “far out” side comes out in the surrealistic album artwork and some kinda-psychedelic guitar parts, which add a nice genre-defying touch without sacrificing any of Spaced’s attack.
Speed – Only One Mode (Flatspot)
Sometimes it seems like there’s an ideological split between the genre’s usually-more-melodic crossover successes and the tougher-sounding bands keeping it real on a more underground level, but Speed defy that entirely. The Australian gang has become even bigger in the States than many of our homegrown heroes, and their debut album Only One Mode does nothing to soften their blow. Taking cues from recent forebears like Trapped Under Ice and early Turnstile as well as OGs like Madball and Biohazard, it’s catchy as hell but only has about 10 seconds of vocals that qualify as “melodic singing.” Usually their one mode is informed only by crisp, ass-beating, chuggy hardcore, and Speed have figured out how to churn out songs within that style that are as concise and memorable as possible. Gang vocals, flute interludes, turntable-scratch breakdowns, and other little embellishments make the whole ride even wilder, and every aspect of this album feels built to keep the crowd moving at every turn. Like most hardcore bands, Speed are best experienced in a room surrounded by a few hundred other sweaty individuals, and if you need a little extra push to go see them, the ten kickass songs on this album are a pretty damn good sell.
Thirdface – Ministerial Cafeteria (Exploding In Sound)
Thirdface’s sophomore album was inspired both by real-world terror and that of a campy horror flick, and Kathryn Edwards’ words are open-ended enough–and real life is scary enough–that it’s not always immediately clear which one she’s singing about. Thirdface don’t always have the answers to the world’s problems, but they fight fire with fire, responding to *gestures at everything* with an album that sounds as terrifying as its subject matter. Kathryn’s shrieks are vicious, and they’re matched by a dissonant, chaotic backdrop that sounds like The Jesus Lizard pivoting to powerviolence. I’m tempted to nerd out about all the ways this band breaks down barriers between like seven different subgenres, but instead I’m going to wrap this up by borrowing one of my favorite Henry Rollins quotes: what a great fucking racket these guys make.
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SEE ALSO:
* 50 Best Albums of 2024
* 50 Best Punk Albums of 2024
* Our 32 Favorite Metal Albums of 2024
* 15 Great Screamo Releases from 2024
We’ve also got some exclusive vinyl variants of some of these records in the BV shop, including Gel and Speed (and Drug Church and The Chisel).
