Thematically, much of this year’s best punk and hardcore music addressed mental health and working through the past while striving for a more peaceful present.
The Blood Brothers Crimes is a pitch-black satire and critique of its time showing how little has changed. It would be depressing if the music weren’t thrilling.
Post-punk band the Dismemberment Plan’s Emergency & I is a landmark about loneliness, confusion, and isolation and how to bounce back from them.
Fred Thomas: “Attention spans are so short now. Records need a story to stand out from the rest. There is a deep intentionality in this record for me.”
Jeremy Bolm is an expert at capturing the claustrophobic feeling of anxiety and depression, and Touché Amoré’s new album is another example of his talent.
Indie rock icon Fred Thomas’ new LP Window in the Rhythm is a career highlight, a riveting and moving meditation on the passage of time.
Chat Pile’s new album does not offer catharsis; it is just an unflinching account of the violence we inflict on each other on an individual and global scale.
Drummer for post-hardcore legends Jawbox, Zach Barocas is living his best life creating jazz with friends in New Freedom Sound. He discusses his new music.
Drug Church’s PRUDE takes its place alongside Gouge Away’s Deep Sage as a highlight of the year in hardcore that could reach outside the flock.
Foxing swing for the fences, and most often, it’s positively thrilling, bending a wealth of influences into something stirring and uniquely powerful.
Two decades out from their wild debut, Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart and Angela Seo reflect on their fans, band-free music videos, and uncompromising new LP.
The Promise Ring’s Very Emergency succeeds by subverting expectations but delivering ten nuggets of power pop and a rebuke of the emerging emo tropes.
