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.
November was a little lighter on new music with both Thanksgiving week and election week deterring artists from dropping new songs–not to mention the year winding down in general–but we got some heavy-hitting songs from the punk world this past month and I’ve picked seven that I talk about below. But first, here are some punk features and reviews we put up in November:
* 50 best punk & emo albums of the second half of the 2010s
* Punk doesn’t need Trump to be mad: 10 crucial political punk albums from 2024
* Kruelty vocalist Zuma’s 10 favorite Japanese aggressive bands
* Thirdface‘s 10 favorite horror film scores
* November album reviews: Planes Mistaken For Stars, Thirdface, The Cure, drive your plow over the bones of the dead, Bottom Bracket, Hidden Mothers, Kruelty, Secret World, Full of Hell & Andrew Nolan, Mammoth Grinder, the Refused tribute LP (ft. Touché Amoré, Fucked Up, IDLES, Gel, Zulu, Quicksand & more), and the Deadbody/Tribal Gaze split.
We’ve also got some new exclusive vinyl in the BV shop, including the new Killswitch Engage album (and some reissues), the new Less Than Jake EP, Saosin self-titled, and recent releases from Drug Church, Thursday, The Story So Far, Speed, Gel, and more. If you haven’t done so yet, you can also pick up our exclusive Alexisonfire box set, reissues & magazine and our Glassjaw box set & book.
Head below for my picks of the 7 best songs of November that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.
Superheaven – “Long Gone”
When Superheaven found their voice on ther 2010s full-lengths Jar (2013) and Ours Is Chrome (2015), they came up with a mix of grunge, shoegaze, and emo/post-hardcore that turned out to be incredibly prescient. They pulled from all across the spectrum of ’90s rock and reshaped 20-25 year-old sounds in a way that stood out both from their forebears and from their peers like Title Fight, Basement, and Balance and Composure, who were delivering variations on similar themes around that same time. And, after breaking up in 2016, a new generation began heavily embracing their music. Despite both of its source genres rising to prominence in the ’80s and ’90s, I don’t think you get the “grungegaze” phenomenon of the 2020s without Superheaven. And when shoegaze in particular began its TikTok-assissted resurgence/explosion in the first half of this decade, Superheaven’s hazy “Youngest Daughter” went from being a deep cut on Jar to the band’s biggest song. As I write this, it has over 100 million streams on Spotify. Their second most popular song lingers just around 20M.
Superheaven’s breakup didn’t last very long; they started playing shows again as early as 2017, and they kept gradually doing one-offs over the years, but the 10th anniversary of Jar helped spark a full reunion tour, and now Superheaven are back in it for the long haul–and the timing couldn’t be better. They said on stage during their ongoing tour with The Story So Far that they have a new album coming in 2025, and their first single in nine years, “Long Gone,” is out now. The song is classic Superheaven, which also makes it something that fits in perfectly right now. It kicks off with a Headbangers Ball-worthy riff that finds the band at their most forceful, and then fades into hazy verses that erupt into grungy shoutalong choruses. It’s a little taste of everything you want from this band, and proof that they’ve very much still got it.
Red Sun – “Boomer”
One of the best new emo bands of 2024 has no doubt been Red Sun, who broke through with their best buds EP and since signed to Wax Bodega (Hot Mulligan, Home Is Where, Carly Cosgrove, etc) with plans to release a split EP with Florida emo band Bonus this Friday (12/6). They hail from Oklahoma City, which is becoming kind of a hot bed for Midwest emo (shoutout Ben Quad and Sunfo), and they’ve mastered the form in a way that feels fresh and nostalgic all at once. “Boomer,” their first single from the split, is one of their best songs yet and a noticeable leap from the EP. The production is sharper, the hooks are catchier, and it’s a great introduction to this band if you haven’t heard them yet. It’s got it all: noodly Midwest emo riffs, push-pit-inducing energy, and plenty of yelpy, verbose passion.
Fucked Up – “City Boy” (ft. High Vis’ Graham Sayle)
On November 1, Fucked Up surprise-released Someday, their third installment of a trilogy that began with 2023’s One Day and August 2024’s Another Day, and this one finds vocalist Damian Abraham taking a bit of a backseat, as guitarist Mike Haliechuk and an array of guests handle the bulk of the vocals. Of the two songs that Damian does bring his unmistakable roar to, one is album opener “City Boy,” a duet with High Vis singer Graham Sayle, and hearing Damian and Graham trade shouts is just as exciting in execution as it is on paper. It’s the kind of pummelling Fucked Up anthem that never goes out of style, and it makes sense that Graham fits in perfectly. Both Fucked Up and High Vis have knacks for combining elements of hardcore and non-hardcore in ways that sound uniquely triumphant.
Chivàla – “Far tremare il corpo”
Italian screamo has long been revered by Americans (thanks to La Quiete, Raein, Øjne, etc), and fans of that particular style/region need to check out Chivàla’s debut album Boato when it drops on December 20 (via No Funeral in North America). It follows a string of EPs and splits dating back to 2018, and it’s already sounds like some of their best stuff yet. In classic Euro-screamo fashion, new single “Far tremare il corpo” is aggressive, lush, and melodic in equal measure, and it pulls off so many satisfying moves: the high-speed chaos, the suspenseful spoken word bridge, and a soaring clean-sung refrain that’s devastatingly beautiful.
Bite The Hand – “Stay Mad”
If you liked the new Scowl single that was featured in this column last month, you might wanna make sure you’ve heard Bite The Hand’s “Stay Mad” too. They have a similar knack for both vicious hardcore and super-catchy alt-rock, and both of those things are in full force on this song (which technically came out in August on the Conned Out of Life EP but got a video in November). We’ve all got a lot to be mad about, and this fiery song wants you to remember that being mad at broken systems and injustices is good, and you can use that anger to inspire real change. And when you need to just let out some cathartic screams, “Stay Mad” will help you do that too.
Sunny War – “Walking Contradiction” (ft. Steve Ignorant)
Sunny War’s music may not use distorted guitars or double-time beats, but it’s punk as fuck. And her new single “Walking Contradiction” is a collaboration with one of the punkest people alive, Steve Ignorant of Crass. It’s an anti-capitalist, anti-war protest song in the spirit of everything from Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie to Crass themselves, and it offers a much-need societal critique that goes far beyond stereotypical sloganeering. It’s a song that wants you to organize as it much as it wants you to hum along.
Spy – “On the Brink”
November’s list ends with one minute and 49 seconds of good old fashioned, fast, venomous hardcore from Spy.
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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.
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Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.
