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.
Hey, happy new year! Hope everyone had a good holiday break, and read lots of year-end lists. We posted one of the 50 best punk albums of 2025 (including lots of punk subgenres), and now I’ve got one more list from 2025: the best punk songs of December.
Also this month, I spoke to Flogging Molly’s Dave King for his first interview since the traumatic brain injury that nearly ended his life. Dave sounds like he’s doing great, and he’s excited to return to the stage at Flogging Molly’s 2026 Salty Dog Cruise. He also mentioned the band are potentially playing Warped Tour, so stay tuned for more Flogging Molly in 2026!
We also launched a new exclusive vinyl reissue of Piebald’s If It Weren’t For Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains For Us All, and you can pick that up and browse more punk vinyl in the BV shop.
Head below for my picks of the 5 best songs of December that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.
Sweet Pill – “No Control”
Sweet Pill have quickly become one of the most exciting newer emo bands around, and they’ve already changed it up from mathy midwest emo (on their 2022 debut LP Where The Heart is) to crunchy power pop (on 2024’s Starchild EP), and now they move into slower, more indie rock-oriented territory on the first single from their sophomore LP Still There’s A Glow. Its more somber tone matches the subject matter, which singer Zayna Youssef describes as “sort of my way to rock bottom. It is my fancy way of calling myself a pushover, unconfident, and ungrateful. I had this ‘grass is always greener’ kind of mentality and wanted more when I already had it and then some.”
Hit Like A Girl – “Keepsake Theory”
If you’re excited about the new Sweet Pill album, you may also want to keep an ear out for the new Hit Like A Girl album, Burning At Both Ends, which arrives on March 27. The artwork for new single “Keepsake Theory” was actually designed by Sweet Pill’s Zayna Youssef, and the song itself finds a middle ground between harsh post-hardcore and bright power pop that you really don’t hear everyday. There are times when it feels like it shouldn’t work, but HLAG make it all sound seamless.
Pelican – “Cascading Crescent” (ft. Geoff Rickly)
When the long-running instrumental band Pelican released their new album Flickering Resonance, they had the idea to flip the script on the tradition of instrumental B-sides and release a vinyl-only B-side of “Cascading Crescent” with vocals. After the song was done, they handed it over to Thursday’s Geoff Rickly, who came up with lead vocals that work so perfectly that it’s almost impossible to imagine the song wasn’t written with him in the first place. Geoff leans into his OG screamo side, with a little bit of clean singing too, and his vocals really reinforce the emo and post-hardcore roots of Pelican, who tend to get pigeonholed as a metal band. The plan was to keep this song to its very limited vinyl run, but thankfully Pelican have now digitally released it because it’s too good to not get a wider release.
Tigers Jaw – “Head Is Like A Sinking Stone”
Tigers Jaw have undergone a lot of lineup changes over the years, and 2021’s very good I Won’t Care How You Remember Me found longtime members Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins really jelling with their new rhythm section of drummer Teddy Roberts and bassist Colin Gorman. Their upcoming LP Lost On You will now be their second album with that lineup (plus new guitarist Mark Lebiecki, who has been playing live with them for a few years), and lead single “Head Is Like A Sinking Stone” picks right up where the band left off. It sounds like classic Tigers Jaw, which is to say it’s an instantly-enjoyable dose of fuzzed-out indie-emo-pop that hits like no other band in the world.
We’ve also got an exclusive blue & green swirl vinyl variant of this one up for pre-order in the BV shop.
Toys That Kill – “Backwash Me The Antidote”
There’s still nobody doing it like Todd Congelliere. The F.Y.P./Toys That Kill leader just has a way with revved-up garage punk energy and sugar-sweet pop melodies, and it looks like he’s set to deliver more of that on the first Toys That Kill album in 10 years. Triple Sabotage drops in February via Recess Records, and new single “Backwash Me The Antidote” is about as classic TTK as it gets.
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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.
