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.
It’s the last month of 2025, year-end lists are in full swing, and we’ll have our annual Best Punk Albums of 2025 list coming soon. But first, here’s a recap of November, including my picks for the 10 best songs of the month.
* Ned Russin (Glitterer, Title Fight) picks 5 favorite ‘fourth albums’ by bands he loves
* The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett picks 5 newer Albany bands to know
* Ragana pick 5 Olympia, WA bands they love
* Ben Quad pick 5 Oklahoma City bands to know
* Ben Quad break down every track on new album Wisher
* Top 5 Converge Albums so far (video)
* 10 Nu Metal Albums That Even Nu Metal Skeptics Need To Know (not exactly a “punk” feature but may be of interest to fans of this column)
* November album reviews: PLOSIVS (Hot Snakes, Pinback, etc), Glitterer, Ben Quad, Gasket, Method of Doubt, Boys Life, The Saints, Excide, Pupil Slicer, Recollection, and Squint.
We also added more exclusive punk vinyl variants to our online shop, including reissues of A Static Lullaby’s …And Don’t Forget to Breathe, Darkest Hour’s Undoing Ruin, Bleeding Through’s The Truth, Quicksand’s Manic Compression, Modern Baseball’s The Perfect Cast, American Football’s LP3, The Offspring’s Conspiracy of One, Descendents’ I Don’t Want to Grow Up, Samiam’s Clumsy, and more. Also available are exclusive variants of the new albums from Turnstile, Militarie Gun, and Drain; the upcoming Joyce Manor album; and more.
Head below for my picks of the 10 best songs of November that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.
Converge – “Love Is Not Enough”
Converge have always known how to open albums, and the album-opening title track of their first proper album in 9 years is no exception. It’s a two-minute, 22-second rager, the kind that reminds you Converge will always be a hardcore band at heart even if they team up with Chelsea Wolfe for a sweeping post-metal album. J Bannon claims that this album is sequenced in such a way that it keeps ramping up in intensity, and if they’ve really got nine more songs that are even more intense than “Love Is Not Enough,” we’re in for a real treat.
Shudder To Think – “Thirst Walk”
Shudder To Think caught us off guard this year when they emerged from a 12-year hibernation for two surprise afternoon shows in LA, but even more surprising is that this reunion includes their first new music in twenty seven years. With a gap that long and two members that had never been in the band before (bassist Jherek Bischoff and guitarist Clint Walsh), it’d be understandable if new Shudder To Think didn’t totally sound like the Shudder To Think you remember, but new single “Thirst Walk” actually sounds exactly like Shudder To Think did in their glory days. From Craig Wedren’s unmistakable vocal heroics to the song’s fidgety, off-kilter post-hardcore patterns, “Thirst Walk” could fit snugly on 1994’s beloved Pony Express Record, and it has the same sense of urgency that this band did 30 years ago.
Gladie – “Car Alarm”
Three years removed from the rugged indie-punk of 2022’s Don’t Know What You’re In Until You’re Out, Gladie are back with the Jeff Rosenstock-assisted “Car Alarm.” It was written about “when your inner world matches the outer world and both are bad,” but the song is so catchy and triumphant that it’ll actually lift your spirits in those moments. “I’m an optimistic depressed person,” adds band leader Augusta Koch, “what can I say.”
Jimmy Eat World – “Failure”
Jimmy Eat World collected some recent singles and other odds and ends for the Something(s) Loud EP, and also included is a great previously-unreleased songs from the sessions for 2019’s Surviving, “Failure.” The song shares its name with the ’90s rock band whose singer Ken Andrews mixed it, but the ’90s band it sounds most like is Weezer. Not that Jimmy Eat World have never been compared to Weezer before, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard them go total Blue Album like they do with the fuzzed-out guitars and relaxed pace of “Failure.” It suits them well, and even if they’re tipping their hat to forebears, once Jim Adkins opens his mouth to sing you could never mistake “Failure” for any other band.
Good Sleepy – “ZZZ”
Having started out as more of a noodly Midwest emo band, Good Sleepy are now leaning into Shed-era Title Fight vibes with their roaring new single “ZZZ” and it turns out they’ve got a serious knack for this kind of thing too. With their upcoming sophomore album Constant Humming‘s first single “Trap,” Good Sleepy say they were “focused on releasing a song that was familiar to our fanbase,” but that this new single “feels like a step in a different direction for us, being the result of lots of new influences that we have had since our last LP.” The LP drops on February 13, and I’m very excited to hear what other new things have crept in.
Footballhead – “Used To Be”
Emo bands tossing a little grunge into their sound always seems to work out pretty well, and on “Used To Be,” Chicago’s Footballhead are doing it unabashedly. “It undeniably calls back to the 2000s alt-rock & butt rock bangers that you’d hear as a kid in the back of your mom’s SUV on the way to Dairy Queen,” says singer/guitarist Ryan Nolen. “Maybe you have your hair spiked and a studded wristband that your older sister gave you. It’s the summer, and you’re gonna play NFL Street 2 and drink Code Red with your best friend all night. That’s the energy we all grew up on and consequently the energy we wanted to capture.” If that kind of guilt-free nostalgia warms your heart, sit back and let these Headbangers Ball riffs work their magic.
No Pressure – “Good Enough”
No Pressure is The Story So Far singer Parker Cannon’s outlet for raw pop punk that sounds like a cross between Nothing Gold Can Stay-era New Found Glory and Dude Ranch-era blink-182, and Parker will be turning his attention back to that band in 2026 for a tour with Drain, Haywire, and Secret World; their first album in four years; and probably more. Two songs are out from the album now, including the under-two-minute “Good Enough,” which will take you right back to the late ’90s.
Remember Sports – “Bug”
Remember Sports say they “don’t know what genre [they] are,” and judging by the first two singles from their upcoming album The Refrigerator, neither do I. First single “Across the Line” goes in a Wednesday/Ratboys-style grungy alt-country direction, while “Bug” is revved-up, fuzzed-out indie-punk. As much as I love hearing Remember Sports veer towards the former, it’s great to know they can still bust out rippers like this.
I Promised the World – “Bliss In 7 Languages”
When post-hardcore / metalcore bands like Poison The Well, Hopesfall, and Alexisonfire were popping off, none of the members of I Promised the World were even born. But from their fashion sense to their album artwork to the sound of their new single “Bliss In 7 Languages,” they’ve clearly devoured everything about that era. It’s off the band’s first EP for Rise Records (and first with this name — they used to be called Sinema), and it feels built to unite those who lived through the swoopy-haired, studded-belt era with those who didn’t. It’s familiar, it’s fresh, and it doesn’t feel like a gimmick.
FinalBossFight! – “Endless Cycle”
Michigan’s FinalBossFight! returned this past month with their new LP The Life of My Dreams, and if you haven’t heard it yet, there’s no better place to start than track one. Album opener “Endless Cycle” is a caffeinated singalong that fans of Midwest emo/pop punk crossover like Modern Baseball, Joyce Manor, and Hot Mulligan should feast their ears on.
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.
