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.
Spooky season is over, and before you know it it’ll be Christmas music and year-end lists galore. But first, here’s a different list: the 10 songs from the punk world released in October that I recommend the most. I’ll get to those after this month’s features and reviews:
* Touché Amoré are still climbing
* Ben Quad break down every track on new screamo EP Ephemera
* The Offspring talk new album, Smash at 30, Ed Sheeran & Beach Boys collabs, and more on BV podcast
* 10 essential slowcore/emo songs
* Mineral’s Chris Simpson talks Big Star, The Innocence Mission, John Cale & more influences on his new baroque pop LP as Mountain Time
* Foxing‘s live show is on a new level
* October album reviews: High Vis, Balance and Composure, Touché Amoré, Drug Church, Envy, Japandroids, Pinhead Gunpowder, Chat Pile, Karate, Ben Quad, Squint, Candy, Chubby and the Gang, Better Lovers, Hey, ily!, See Through Person, The Linda Lindas, and Human Impact (mem Unsane).
We’ve also got some new exclusive vinyl in the BV shop, including the first vinyl reissue of Piebald’s We Are The Only Friends We Have in 20+ years (on green in yellow vinyl, limited to 200), a series of Killswitch Engage reissues, the new L.S. Dunes album, the new Less Than Jake EP, and recent releases from Drug Church, Thursday, The Story So Far, Speed, 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 10 best songs of October that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.
Anxious – “Counting Sheep”
When Anxious released their 2022 debut LP Little Green House, much was made (including from us) about how they sounded kinda like Saves The Day and Taking Back Sunday, but they didn’t get there by trying to sound like those bands; they got there by looking to Revelation Records youth crew hardcore and the pop smarts of The Beach Boys all at once. It made it kinda difficult to quickly describe them to someone (are they hardcore? emo? pop punk?), but I don’t think those conversations will happen as much after their sophomore LP Bambi comes out. Because at this point, Anxious are just Anxious. When you listen to new single “Counting Sheep,” you can break down all the different cross-genre and cross-generational influences it pulls from, or you can just enjoy it for what it is: a great, catchy punk song that’s covered in Anxious’ unique fingerprints. When I saw them playing an intimate show in Ridgewood, Queens just nine days after the song came out, they opened it with it and they had the crowd yelling along right off the bat. It already felt like an Anxious staple, and it’s hard to think of a better-case scenario for a new single than that.
Scowl – “Special”
Speaking of melodic bands with roots in the hardcore scene, Scowl is another rising band capturing the magic of that formula. Kat Moss’ gritty wail has gained comparisons to Hole, Garbage, and other ’90s rock bands led by powerhouse women, but the band they remind of most right now is AFI. If the fast-paced hardcore punk of their 2021 debut LP How Flowers Grow is Scowl’s Very Proud of Ya, than their debut Dead Oceans single “Special” sounds like something that could’ve bridged the gap between The Art of Drowning and Sing the Sorrow. It embraces the ’90s grunge revival that’s been everywhere lately, and it’s still got enough chugging guitars and piercing shrieks to give it an edge that so many of their grungy contemporaries lack.
L.S. Dunes – “Machines”
On their 2022 debut LP Past Lives, L.S. Dunes were a post-hardcore dream come true. With Thursday’s rhythm section, the combined guitar heroism of My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero and Coheed and Cambria’s Travis Stever, and the unmistakable voice of Circa Survive’s Anthony Green, they sort of sounded exactly like the sum of their parts, and they did it in the best way possible. But as L.S. Dunes took off, they started to feel less like a dream-come-true supergroup and more like a regular band, and I mean that in the best way possible too. On “Machines” off their upcoming sophomore album Violet, it sounds less like five established musicians bringing their recognizable styles together and more like one band with a ton of chemistry reconvening for LP2. “Machines” doesn’t feel like mid 2000s nostalgia, it just feels like great current music from five musicians who also made great music in the mid 2000s. It explores L.S. Dunes’ airy, spacious side, and it still has some pretty gnarly screams from Anthony Green. It sounds like a new beginning.
Pick up our exclusive “twilight” vinyl variant of ‘Violet.’
Prince Daddy & the Hyena – “God Complex”
As great as it is to hear Prince Daddy & the Hyena write ambitious concept albums and slow-burning emo power ballads, there’s just something about the way they bust out an indie-punk ripper like “God Complex.” It’s fast, catchy, fat-trimmed, and it feels like the perfect song to quickly familiarize yourself with before seeing them on tour this fall.
Pest Control – “Year of the Pest”
A lot of modern crossover thrash get a little too overtly retro for my personal liking, so it really struck me that Pest Control feel so rooted in the current moment. The UK band’s riffs do justice to any of the ’80s thrash and crossover giants, lead screamer Leah Massey-Hay is up there with the most magnetic vocalists in today’s hardcore scene, and it’s worth mentioning that they feel more like a punk/hardcore band than a metal band. Most importantly, whenever I listen to this song and their new EP of the same name, I can feel my heart beating out of my chest. If you aren’t already into this band, change that now, because it truly is the year of the pest.
Zeta – “Privilege”
Venezuelan-born, Florida-based experimental post-hardcore band Zeta will return in January with new album Was It Medicine To You? via their new label home Born Losers Records (featuring guest appearances by Anthony Green of the aforementioned L.S. Dunes and Soul Glo vocalist Pierce Jordan), and lead single “Privilege” is classic Zeta. It’s heavy, atmospheric, and far-out, with a pounding rhythmic undercurrent, and it finds the band taking on “social imbalance and how positivity can be subjective or even toxic depending on the circumstances, and how we can endure difficulties with integrity through hard work, passion and love without having to ignore feeling angry or upset about injustice.”
Dreamwell – “Music To Take Teeth By”
“Music To Take Teeth By” is one of two songs that Providence’s Dreamwell contributed to a split with Death Goals (who appeared in the July edition of In Defense of the Genre with their standalone single “Knife Bouquet”) and the band say both songs are “inspired by revenge films all about your, yes YOUR, abuser dying.” A song with a description like that better be as violent and chaotic as possible, and “Music To Take Teeth By” definitely is. Dreamwell have songs that are all across the post-hardcore spectrum, and this one’s an all out war of sass screams, panic chords, and lyrics about murder.
Siddhartha Smile – “Nancy’s Song”
If you took one look at the cover of South Carolina band Siddhartha Smile’s Spring Forward EP and thought “that’s the most 1996 emo-looking art I’ve seen in a minute,” you’ve already got a pretty good idea of what to expect. I get very strong Texas Is The Reason vibes from this song and the other two tracks on the EP, and Siddhartha Smile might not be breaking any new ground, but it’s not as often that we hear this side of ’90s emo getting revived, and this very new band (whose first show is on November 9) already do it very well.
The Offspring – “Truth In Fiction”
The Offspring have branched out in a handful of different directions over the years, but they’ve never abandoned their roots. And when it comes to the kinds of fast, melodic rippers that populated their world-conquering 1994 album Smash, their ability to still dish those out 30 years later is pretty remarkable. “Truth In Fiction” is the most Smash-y song on their new album Supercharged, and if not for the lyrics about deepfake technology, you might be fooled into thinking it’s actually an outtake from that era. It’s all there–the chugging riffs, the aggressive-yet-soaring Dexter Holland vocals–and even three decades removed from the moment that The Offspring infiltrated mainstream music, “Truth In Fiction” still sounds pretty radical in today’s context.
Hot Water Music – “Fazer” (Quicksand Cover)
Is it a cop-out to choose a cover for a list like this? Maybe, but when it hits this hard, I can’t not talk about it. Quicksand’s iconic Slip opener set the tone for so many post-hardcore bands, and Hot Water Music were never shy about the influence that Quicksand and their vocalist Walter Schreifels’ other bands had on them; had Walter not left such a big impact on the band, they probably wouldn’t have asked him to produce their 1999 album No Division. Fast forward 25 years since they first worked together, Hot Water Music have been celebrating their 30th anniversary on tour with Quicksand opening multiple legs, and the two bands decided to team up for a split EP on which they cover each other and contribute one new song each. Hot Water Music already have at least one classic “bands covering each other” split under their belts (with Alkaline Trio from 2002), and their take on “Fazer” reminds you of how good they are at bringing their charm to someone else’s music. They play it like they wrote it, and their rendition helps reinforce how much Quicksand helped pave the way for Hot Water Music in the first place, but also how Hot Water Music took what they started, ran with it, and made it their own. If you happen to be a fan of one of these bands but not the other, this cover might be the thing that changes that.
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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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