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.
Welcome to the first edition of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ of 2024! In case you missed it, we made our list of the 50 best albums of 2023 from underneath the greater punk umbrella, as well as subgenre lists like screamo, metalcore, ska-punk, and hardcore. And there’s already so much music to look forward to in the new year. I’ve put together a list of 10 of my favorite punk songs from January (technically one is from December because I didn’t do a December roundup), but first, here are some recent features:
* 21 albums that defined ’90s New York post-hardcore
* Caravels discuss 6 major influences behind Lacuna for its 10th anniversary
* Screamo vets Angel Hair discuss 10 influences on their ’90s discography
* 10 albums that influenced Worcester emo band Good Sleepy
* Listen to a new ska discussion with In Defense of Ska‘s Aaron Carnes
* January album reviews: Infant Island, glass beach, Green Day, Sleater-Kinney, Massa Nera/Quiet Fear, Alkaline Trio, Be Safe, and Escuela Grind.
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, The Chisel, Bad Brains, Militarie Gun, Taking Back Sunday, and Balance and Composure vinyl, and more.
Read on for my picks of the 10 best songs of January that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order…
Sunny Day Real Estate – “Novum Vetus”
The prospect of getting a new Sunny Day Real Estate song for the first time since they put out “Lipton Witch” on a 2014 split 7″ with Circa Survive was exciting on its own, and my excitement rose when I learned that “Novum Vetus” was originally conceived during the sessions for 1998’s How It Feels To Be Something On, the album that pretty much wrote the blueprint for emo bands looking to pivot towards art rock, just as Diary wrote the blueprint for second/third wave emo in general. And this seven-and-a-half-minute song totally rises to the occasion. Though its life began over 25 years ago, original members Jeremy Enigk, Dan Hoerner, and William Goldsmith recorded it recently (with current guitarist Greg Suran and bassist Chris Jordan), and it captures the spirit of How It Feels To Be Something On while exhibiting the maturation of Jeremy Enigk’s most recent solo material. Jeremy’s voice sounds fantastic, and the song strikes the perfect balance between ’90s nostalgia and present-day concerns. This one was worth finally coming back to after all these years.
VIAL – “falling short”
The dream of the ’90s is alive in VIAL. “falling short” is the third single released from their anticipated new album burnout, and all three of them deliver the thrill of a ’90s radio rock hit in under two minutes each. They also feel entirely in the now; if “get him back!” can be a hit in the 2020s, so could “falling short” or “just fine” with the right push. This one’s a 90-second pop punk ripper that you could picture fitting on a ’90s alternative teen movie soundtrack, skate video, or Lookout! Records sampler, and the energy is just so addictive.
Gouge Away – “Stuck In A Dream”
Gouge Away eased their way back from hiatus with last year’s atmospheric post-hardcore song “Idealized,” but “Stuck In A Dream”–which accompanied the announcement of their new album Deep Sage–really says “we’re back!” With an uptempo bounce propelled by drummer Thomas Cantwell (also currently of Angel Du$t), “Stuck In A Dream” hits like a shot of adrenaline and Christina Michelle’s shouted hooks are sticky as all hell without ever toning down the fury.
NØ MAN – “Glitter and Spit”
To quote NØ MAN vocalist Maha Shami, people “often romanticize the idea of an angry woman until you disrupt their status quo.” “Glitter and Spit” is a metaphor for that dichotomy and disruption; so is the contrast between their brightly-colored album artwork and their sonic abrasion. An offshoot of Majority Rule, NØ MAN toe the line between dramatic screamo and blistering hardcore, and “Glitter and Spit” is a masterful display of rage, tension, and release.
Green Day – “Bobby Sox”
Green Day’s new album Saviors isn’t perfect but it’s got some songs I’d put up there with their ’90s material, and “Bobby Sox” is one of them. This one in particular also sounds very ’90s–specifically it sounds like Green Day doing their best impression of Weezer’s Blue Album–but Billie Joe, Mike, and Tré bring their own flavor to Saviors even when they’re wearing their influences on their sleeves. With its alternating hooks of “Do you wanna be my girlfriend?” and “Do you wanna be my boyfriend?,” it’s a super catchy queer anthem (and not Billie Joe’s first), and celebrating love of all kinds feels like an even bigger blow to the ‘MAGA agenda’ than tired political sloganeering. The song’s full of classic Billie Joe Armstrong-isms (listen to the way he rolls the word “reruns”), and the clash between the falsetto “ooh”s and Billie Joe half-screaming makes for one of this band’s liveliest moments in years.
P.S., look for Anaiah from past ‘best punk songs of the month’ makers Zulu front-flipping off a roof into the crowd in the video.
Spaced – “Landslide”
Citing both Gorilla Biscuits and My Bloody Valentine as influences, Spaced are clearly interested in messing with genre boundaries and “Landslide” is a perfect example of that. It’s a hardcore punk rager embellished with textures that go beyond the genre’s typical sonics, and most striking of all is the one-word chorus that feels built to get a crowd shouting along. Maybe that’s exactly what’ll happen when Spaced tour with Militarie Gun, Pool Kids, and Spiritual Cramp this February.
Swiss Army Wife – “What Nietzsche Wanted”
If you’re looking for good ol’ fashioned Midwest-style emo in 2024, make sure you’ve got your eyes on Swiss Army Wife. Their 2023 debut LP Medium Gnarly is a blast, and they’ve kept the momentum going this year with two songs on Really Rad Records’ three-way split The Ultimate Emo Album (alongside Avec Plaisir and Celebration Guns). The split’s cheeky, hyperbolic title doesn’t seem so crazy when you hear how many boxes “What Nietzsche Wanted” checks. It’s got the strained, yelpy singer, the screamy singer, the mathy noodling, the punk speed, the shoutalong hooks, and a climactic buildup that closes out the song. It’s full of familiar thrills but it never feels by the book. Like so much of the best basement emo, it puts energy first and worries about the rest later.
Frail Body – “Refrain”
It’s only January and it’s already an amazing year for screamo, with the Infant Island LP, the Massa Nera/Quiet Fear split LP, and now the announcement and lead single of Frail Body’s sophomore album Artificial Bouquet. (But I guess winter’s a good time for this kinda stuff.) “Refrain” is the kind of screamo that’s both a little post-rock and a little black metal, as gorgeous and lush as it is harsh and abrasive. It’s “about how insignificant life can feel at the very end,” says vocalist/guitarist Lowell Shaffer. “The juxtaposition of a rich and complex life ending in a rented bed.” “Refrain” couldn’t be a more fitting soundtrack.
Call Me Malcolm – “One Cure to the Head, Two to the Chest”
When we last heard from Call Me Malcolm, it was the 2020 LP My, Myself and Something Else, an emotive ska-punk concept album about mental health struggles, and their new single “One Cure to the Head, Two to the Chest” picks right up where the subject matter and unique musical approach of that album left off. It’s the first single from their upcoming Bad Time Records debut Echoes and Ghosts, which singer/songwriter Lucias Malcolm calls “a eulogy for the parts of myself I killed with medication, and a love letter to the silhouette I became,” and it kinda sounds like if the back-to-back Bayside and Streetlight Manifesto songs on that one Victory Records sampler bled right into each other.
Captain Jazz – “Oh Sussy Life”
In December, Emo Twitter started passing around an album by a band called Captain Jazz with artwork that depicted the American Football house on fire. The general reaction I saw was to wonder if this band could possibly be serious, followed by people clicking play and realizing the music actually slaps. That’s also the journey that I went through, and while we’re borrowing things from iconic emo bands, I wanna hate this so bad but I can’t. It’s hard to get your music noticed in our world of content overload, so if you can use a good sense of humor to your advantage and pull something like this off, why not? One of the album’s standout tracks is another Cap’n Jazz reference, and beneath the parody-heavy exterior is a song that’s no joke at all. It’s a climactic, suspense-building screamo song that never lets up on the intensity, and it’s music that would stand out from the pack even if it didn’t come wrapped up in meme humor. Whoever’s behind this clearly has a lot of love for emo, and honestly, taking the piss out of two of the genre’s most beloved bands is way truer to how those bands operated than blatantly worshipping them would be.
**
In an effort to cover as many bands as possible, I try to just do one single per album cycle in these monthly roundups, and you can read about recent singles from the upcoming Mannequin Pussy, Carpool, The Chisel, Sweet Pill, Glitterer, Barely Civil, and Stay Inside albums (or EPs) in past editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ by clicking those artist links.
For even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2024.
—
Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.
Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.
