In Defense of the Genre is a column on BrooklynVegan about punk, pop punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, ska-punk, and more, including and often especially the bands and albums and subgenres that weren’t always taken so seriously.
Before I say anything else, rest in peace Ozzy Osbourne. We lost the heavy music godfather this month, and without his influence, there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be talking about any of the music that I talk about in this column every month. For just one example of Ozzy’s impact on punk in particular, here’s The Offspring and Sum 41’s Dave Baksh covering “Crazy Train”:
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July also saw the start of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade tour (with some surprises), a surprise partial Carry On reunion at Sound & Fury, the continuation of the Dropkick Murphys vs Donald Trump saga, and more. We also reviewed the new albums from Nuvolascura, Boneflower, Scalp, Forth Wanderers, and Pygmy Lush.
We also launched some new exclusive punk vinyl variants, including xWeaponX’s Weapon X Demo 2, the 10th anniversary edition of Citizen’s Everybody Is Going To Heaven, the 20th anniversary edition of Chiodos’ All’s Well That Ends Well, the new reissue of It Dies Today’s Forever Scorned; and upcoming albums from Thrice, The Acacia Strain, Biohazard, Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, Drain, Modern Life Is War, Between the Buried and Me, Superchunk, Rise Against, and more.
Head below for my picks of the 10 best songs of July that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.
How Much Art – “PR”
Fiddlehead are still going at their usual pace (they have some shows this August with Rival Schools, Bad Beat, and Collateral), but vocalist Pat Flynn and drummer Shawn Costa (who also played in Have Heart, Sweet Jesus, and Free together) are now also keeping busy with a new band, How Much Art, which also includes former Gel guitarist Maddi Nave on guitar/backing vocals plus members of Downtalker, Qualms, and more. They launched the project pretty quietly, having played just a few shows (including two opening for MSPAINT) without making a big deal about who’s in the band, but their debut single “PR” is a loud, grand introduction. It’s a shoutalong anthem that kinda sounds like Fiddlehead injected with post-punk basslines, synths, and the vocal counterpoint of Maddi’s upper register, and it’s up there with the catchiest Fiddlehead songs in existence. I don’t know if Pat and Shawn were trying to keep this project a little more low key by rolling it out the way they did, but if the rest of their upcoming Public Relations EP is as undeniable as “PR,” it’s not gonna stay that way for long.
Fleshwater – “Jetpack”
Fleshwater have become one of the best Deftones-y shoegaze/post-hardcore/grunge bands around, which is what made it so cool that they recently opened an arena tour for them, and they’ll be keeping the momentum of that tour (and recent single “Standalone”) going with their sophomore album, 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky. They made this one with one of the best post-hardcore drummers in existence on drums (Pianos Become the Teeth’s David Haik), and lead single “Jetpack” is everything that’s great about this band wrapped into four minutes and four seconds. Led by the dual vocal chemistry of Marisa Shirar and Anthony DiDio, the song perfectly toes the line between shoegazy atmosphere, post-hardcore attack, and melodic alt-rock bliss. This space is an increasingly crowded one, and Fleshwater keep standing out at every turn.
Angel Du$t – “The Knife”
Angel Du$t, who went on an epic tour with Fiddlehead (and Drug Church) in 2023 and have an upcoming tour with Fleshwater, also made a lot of noise in July with The Beat, their first 7″ for Run For Cover. The record reunites them with veteran hardcore producer Brian McTernan, who also worked on their 2014 debut LP A.D., and these new songs return to the more aggressive vibes of that album and its especially influential followup, Rock the Fuck On Forever. I like both tracks a lot, but “The Knife” kinda has the edge for me (no pun intended), and if you like Angel Du$t’s A.D. / RTFOF era, you need this in your life.
Saturdays At Your Place – “Waste Away”
Kalamazoo, Michigan emo band Saturdays At Your Place sounded like they were (figuratively) bursting out of the basement with their ambitious 2023 EP Always Cloudy, and it also literally helped make them more popular than ever. Now they’re taking that a step further with their upcoming sophomore album These Things Happen and its lead single “Waste Away,” which is the biggest sounding song they’ve ever released. It finds the perfect middle ground between Modern Baseball-y emo-pop and noodly Kinsella/Algernon riffs, all stirred together into that very appealing Saturdays At Your Place flavor.
Hayley Williams – “Mirtazapine”
Paramore were directly tied to the 2000s pop punk and emo boom since day one, then they did more of an ’80s new wave thing, then more of a 2000s dance-punk thing, and now Hayley Williams has gone full ’90s with “Mirtazapine,” one of the 17 new songs she just released. It’s an ode to the antidepressant of the same name, and it finds Hayley going in a very ’90s, shoegazy alt-rock direction that would fit somewhere on the same spectrum as Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Breeders. I would imagine these were all influences on Paramore (whose early-in-their-career cover of Failure’s “Stuck On You” finally hit streaming services this past month), and it’s no surprise that Hayley sounds great fully embracing this kind of thing.
Weakened Friends – “Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out)”
For more current-day, ’90s-style grunge-punk, Weakened Friends are one of the best newer bands doing it and their new single “Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out)” (from upcoming LP Feels Like Hell) is no exception. It sounds like it would’ve been a hit back then, and in a just world, it’d be a hit now too.
The Acacia Strain – “A Call Beyond”
As death metal and hardcore continue to mix, The Acacia Strain’s combination of those genres has emerged as an important predecessor to the new wave(s), and TAS remain totally tapped in to the future of these genres, as you can see from their recent and upcoming tourmates. “A Call Beyond” is the first taste of their upcoming 13th album You Are Safe From God Here, and it finds them sounding especially fresh, with beastly metal breakdowns, a hardcore punk circle pit opener, and lots more in between.
We’ve also got an exclusive “mattal gear solid” vinyl variant up for pre-order in the BV shop.
Thrice – “Gnash”
It’s been a minute since we’ve heard Thrice deliver the kind of bludgeoning sludge metal force that they did on songs like “Firebreather” and “Silhouette,” but that’s exactly what they do on “Gnash” and they’ve clearly still got it. It’s the first taste of their upcoming album Horizons/West (which we’ve also got an exclusive vinyl variant of).
Start Today – “What About Now”
In case sharing a name with a Gorilla Biscuits album didn’t give it away, Start Today are pure youth crew revival, and their new self-titled EP sounds like it could be a lost gem from 1988. It actually came out in May of this year on Rebirth Records, but the LA band didn’t catch my eye until they toured the East Coast in July, and I’d be remiss not to give EP opener “What About Now” a shout here. It’s a sound and an energy that never goes out of style, and Start Today pull it off too genuinely to ever be called poor imitators.
Jay Som – “Float” (ft. Jim Adkins)
Jay Som’s “Float” from her upcoming album Belong features backing vocals by Jimmy Eat World’s Jim Adkins, its video is kind of a “The Middle” homage (apparently an unintentional one), and the song is the kind of punk/power pop crossover that you could picture coming out on one of Jimmy Eat World’s 2000s records. Jim’s voice isn’t super prominent but the co-sign is perfect–if you’re a fan of those records, I imagine “Float” would be right up your alley. (Also, the aforementioned Hayley Williams appears on this album too.)
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In an effort to cover as many bands as possible, I try to just do one single per album cycle in these monthly roundups, so catch up on previous months’ lists for even more:
For even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2025.
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Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.
Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.
