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.
Just in time for the spring weather, we’ve got an overload of great new songs from in and around the punk world. I picked 10 to highlight below, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what was a very healthy month for the genre, so don’t miss the playlist at the bottom of the list with even more. Before we get there, though, some recent features and reviews:
* 30 classic emo & post-hardcore albums turning 10 in 2024
* Koyo, Anxious, One Step Closer, and Stateside brought the melodic hardcore tour of the year to Brooklyn
* VIAL talk Nirvana, ska, Minneapolis DIY & more on the BV podcast
* NOBRO list 10 badass songs that pump them up before a show
* March album reviews: Mannequin Pussy, Gouge Away, VIAL, NØ MAN, Frail Body, Wristmeetrazor, Pissed Jeans, Stay Inside, Spaced, Carpool, Barely Civil, Restorations, Call Me Malcolm, Sweet Pill, and Jophus (Kory from Prince Daddy).
We’ve also got some new exclusive punk vinyl in the BV shop, including variants of the just-announced Story So Far and SeeYouSpaceCowboy albums, two Arsonists Get All the Girls reissues, the recently-released Carpool and The Chisel albums, and much 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.
Also this past month, we launched the new (free) BrooklynVegan digital magazine with Mannequin Pussy on the cover! It looks like this:
Head here to subscribe for free and start reading.
Head below for my picks of the 10 best songs of March that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order…
SeeYouSpaceCowboy – “Silhouettes In Motion”
SeeYouSpaceCowboy are not shy about the fact that Panic! at the Disco is an influence on their upcoming album–which was produced by A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out producer Matt Squire and shares P!ATD’s love of cabaret-themed music videos–but that influence manifests itself within a heavy post-hardcore band whose new album also pulls from Fear Before the March of Flames and Alexisonfire. New single “Silhouettes In Motion” kind of answers the question “what if that first Panic! at the Disco album was by a really fucking heavy band?”, and you can probably already imagine the amount of theatrical sass that comes through.
We’ve got an exclusive neon pink vinyl variant of the new album in the BV shop, limited to 250.
Magazine Beach – “Vacuum”
Magazine Beach’s excellent 2023 debut album Constant Springtime was like a patchwork quilt of different styles of emo; one of the only styles it didn’t have was emo-infused shoegaze, but fear not–their new two-song single goes fully in that direction. A-side “Vacuum” finds vocalists Casey Rutter and Angelo Leitner-Wise sounding more dreamy and ethereal than ever, atop a wall of sludgegazy guitars. It’s as heavy as it is beautiful, and even with shoegaze having more of a moment now than it probably ever has, “Vacuum” stands out.
Webbed Wing – “Further” / Clever Hour – “Burning Desire”
Superheaven are bigger now than they were during their initial run as a band (thanks in part to a deep cut going viral on TikTok), and they still sometimes play shows, but they haven’t released new music in nearly a decade. However, co-vocalists Taylor Madison and Jake Clarke both also have other current projects, and both released great new music in the past month–Taylor with Webbed Wing (which Jake also drums in) and Jake with Clever Hour.
Taylor’s usual ’90s-loving mix of grunge, post-hardcore, and shoegaze is in fine form on Vol. III‘s lead single “Further,” but it also finds him embracing his love of The Lemonheads and other bands on the more jangly side of ’90s alt-rock. Taylor’s ability to sound overtly ’90s without ever sounding like he’s imitating anyone is as strong on “Further” as it was on Jar, and I can say the same about Jake, who embraces his harder, chunkier, Helmet/Quicksand side on Clever Hour’s “Burning Desire.” With so many bands right now taking obvious cues from Jake and Taylor, it’s worth celebrating that their current music is on par with their revived classics.
The Story So Far – “Letterman”
Throughout their years as pop punk true believers, The Story So Far have deviated from the form a few times, like with the emo/dream pop fusion “Upside Down” on their last album Proper Dose and the acoustic guitar/piano ballad “Clairvoyant” on their split with Stick To Your Guns. Since that last album, vocalist Parker Cannon indulged in his love of raw, hardcore-adjacent pop punk with No Pressure as guitarist Kevin Geyer explored somber, atmospheric indie territory with Same Side, essentially breaking down the properties that informed a song like “Upside Down” in the first place. Now, TSSF have reconvened for their first album in six years, I Want To Disappear, and those same forces are clashing once again on new single “Letterman.” It’s dreamy indie rock with a pop punk kick, and the hooks are just endless.
We’ve got an exclusive orange & black butterfly vinyl variant of TSSF’s new album, limited to 500.
Hot Mulligan – “Stickers of Brian”
Fresh off releasing their best album yet with last year’s Why Would I Watch, Hot Mulligan return with a standalone track that offers up two minutes and 42 seconds of that exact same emo/pop punk catharsis. It’s a pure adrenaline rush that you can instantly picture sweaty crowds scream-singing along to on their upcoming tour.
Annabel – “Defense Mechanism”
Ohio emo band Annabel slowed down a lot after wrapping up the tour cycle behind 2015’s Having It All, but now they’re back in full force with new album Worldviews set to arrive this June via Tiny Engines. Having long focused on the delicate, pretty side of basement-dwelling emo, “Defense Mechanism” stays true to Annabel’s humble, DIY feel, but with a chorus that’s big and anthemic in a way their earlier material only hinted at.
Fresh – “Merch Girl”
“Gonna write a song with a voice so strong it knocks you sideways,” Kathryn Woods scream-sings on “Merch Girl,” and yeah, that’s exactly what she did. The title track of the UK indie-punk band’s upcoming EP is about the frustrations of living on the sidelines of a music scene because of said music scene’s gender biases, and then shattering that glass ceiling with a catchy, kickass song like this one.
The Hope Conspiracy – “Those Who Gave Us Yesterday”
Longevity and aging gracefully in hardcore is no easy task, but The Hope Conspiracy are exactly the kind of ever-evolving band who can pull it off, and with “Those Who Gave Us Yesterday,” they absolutely did. It’s a sludgy, rock-infused hardcore song that points its anger towards the American politicians who put profit and war above everything else, and it’s delivered in a way that’ll fire up even the most desensitized or blissfully ignorant among us.
Foreign Hands – “God Under Fingernails”
Delaware/Pennsylvania metalcore band Foreign Hands’ last single “Conditioned for a Head-On Collision” (ft. Static Dress’s Olli Appleyard) found them diving more into their melodic side than ever before, and they’re exceedingly good at that kind of stuff, but if you were afraid that meant their upcoming album What’s Left Unsaid would tone down the fury, fear not. New single “God Under Fingernails” finds them in brutal ass-kicking mode, and the crisp Will Putney production only helps them sound harder than ever.
P.S., both Foreign Hands and the aforementioned SeeYouSpaceCowboy will be on tour supporting Every Time I Die/Dillinger Escape Plan offshoot Better Lovers (of which Will Putney is also a member) this spring, with Greyhaven too.
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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.
Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.
