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.
Did you see that Best Friends Forever Fest lineup? Or the No Values lineup? Or that massive Drain tour? Or that Have Heart are back again? It’s a good time to be a punk or emo or hardcore or whatever fan right now, and on that note, here’s a list of 10 songs from the punk world released in February that I think you should hear. But first, some features and reviews:
* Thursday discuss 8 major influences behind War All The Time (which they just played in full on tour)
* Ned Russin (Glitter, Title Fight) on navigating art, DIY ethos, and capitalism
* The Chisel vocalist lists his 10 favorite British punk & Oi! records
* February album reviews: The Chisel, Glitterer, Prize Horse, and Laura Jane Grace.
We’ve also got our exclusive Alexisonfire box set, reissues & magazine and our Glassjaw box set & book up for pre-order now, plus some exclusive Carpool, Bad Brains, Arsonists Get All the Girls, Militarie Gun, Taking Back Sunday, and Balance and Composure vinyl, and more.
Read on for my picks of the 10 best songs of February that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order…
Knocked Loose – “Blinding Faith”
We’ve been waiting five long years to get a new full-length from Knocked Loose, and that’ll change with You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To on May 10 via Pure Noise. 2021’s A Tear In the Fabric of Life EP is as towering as like 80% of hardcore bands’ albums, but a full-length is still a full-length, and the first taste of You Won’t Go feels to me like the triumphant comeback moment I’ve been waiting for. With an under-three-minute runtime and a circle-pit-inducing pace, it’s among the band’s most concise songs and it also feels like one of their most immediate and accessible, but not because they’ve gotten any less heavy or less weird. It’s all high-pitched barks from Bryan Garris and death metal growls from Isaac Hale, discordant riffage, and ominous breakdowns, and the darkness in the music is matched by subject matter about the hypocrisy of organized religion. Isaac is promising that the new album goes in multiple directions, and this quick rager is keeping me on my toes for whatever they do next.
Restorations – “Cured”
From the very beginning, Restorations were a band of lifer musicians who knew how to take their time. They may have sped things up when they got some unexpected hype in the mid 2010s, but they had intended to be more of a part-time band from the start and they eventually retreated back to that lower-stakes comfort zone, where they currently reside. “Cured” is their first song in six years, and it feels fueled by the same loose freedom that made their early work such a perfect mix of weary and energized. Like a lot of the best Restorations songs, it fuses the weight of sludge metal, the atmosphere of post-rock and psychedelia, and the gravelly grit of Hot Water Music/Lucero-style punk into something that’s uniquely Restorations. At this point in the game, there’s no better band to compare “Cured” to than Restorations themselves.
Jophus – “I Hear Chimes”
Prince Daddy & the Hyena have a lot of really good fired-up emo/punk songs, and they also have some more atmospheric, chiller moments that hit just as hard as the louder stuff. If you like that latter vibe from Prince Daddy, you should also be listening to singer Kory Gregory’s solo project Jophus, who has a whole album in that realm. It’s out now on vinyl, and will be out digitally next week (3/8) via Counter Intuitive Records, and the first song to hit streaming is the closing track “I Hear Chimes.” It finds Kory swirling together breezy acoustic guitars, rung-out electric ones, a sturdy backbeat, piano, and various other trippy sound effects, and topping it off with his unmistakably unique voice.
Foxtails – “Dereliction”
Since bringing in violinist Jared Schmidt for 2022’s Fawn, Foxtails have sounded kinda like if Godspeed You! Black Emperor were a screamo band, and their new EP Home picks right up where Fawn left off. Opening track “Dereliction” is an apocalyptic highlight.
Purest Form – “Broke”
With members who have done time in Fury, Choking On Ash, Roman Candles, Pocketknife, and more, the three people behind Purest Form have made everything from metallic hardcore to folk punk to grunge revival, and this new band finds them making ’90s-style industrial rock while still sounding like a punk band. Their debut single “Broke” is a fast two-minute rager that sounds like Nine Inch Nails’ “Wish” with a screamo makeover, and it was written about the fear of AI. “There’s a dystopian idea that your authentic self could be replaced by something artificial,” says vocalist Story Beeson. “Technology could take us away from our true selves. That’s the root of industrial music to me.”
Simulakra – “Heathen’s Prayer”
The latest from Simulakra is raw, primal, metallic hardcore at its finest. Nothing is too fancy, everything hits just right.
Pissed Jeans – “Cling To A Poisoned Dream”
Pissed Jeans’ new album Half-Divorced is out today (read my review in Notable Releases), and it’s a total blast of a record that finds the band leaning more into short, fast, classic hardcore-style rippers than ever before. “Cling To A Poisoned Dream” is one of those kinds of songs, and it just dropped in late February as the final pre-release single.
Heavenly Blue – “Static Voice Speaks to Static Me”
Hailing from Detroit and born out of the ashes of Youth Novel, Heavenly Blue are a seven-piece screamo band including two lead vocalists who just sing without an instrument. You can probably imagine the kind of chaos they bring to their live shows (and you’re imagining right), and that completely unhinged energy also comes pouring out of their new song “Static Voice Speaks to Static Me.” They said they wanted the song to sound “undeniably ’90s screamo” but also catchy like Knapsack or Jawbreaker, and, in Heavenly Blue’s own weird way, that mission statement comes through.
Owen – “Beaucoup”
If you’re stoked that Mike Kinsella is headlining festivals with two of his most influential ’90s bands, American Football and Cap’n Jazz, then make sure you also know that he’s also got a new album coming from his longest-running project, Owen. On lead single “Beaucoup,” Mike’s singing and lyrical style remains as vivid, gripping, and vulnerable as it’s been for the past 25 years. The presentation is different–it’s in warm, strummy indie folk territory with a glitch pop coda–but the core of the songwriting can rattle your bones as much as the first American Football record.
Planet On A Chain – “Cocalero”
You’ve probably noticed that the music in this list of “punk” songs has so far ranged from borderline death metal to hazy indie rock because I like using “punk” as an umbrella term that encompasses so much more than just the kinds of short, fast, loud songs that Black Flag were writing in 1979. But if you’re looking for something like that, Planet On A Chain’s “Cocalero” has got you covered.
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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 2024.
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Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.
Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.
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Top photo: Knocked Loose at Dia De Los Deftones 2023 by Tojo Andrianarivo. More here.