‘In Defense of the Genre': Best Punk & Emo Songs of April
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.
April is a wrap and it was a good month in the punk world -- hardcore at Coachella, the return of blink-182 at Coachella, the return of Silent Majority, lineup announcements from The Fest, Sound & Fury, and This Is Hardcore, too many good new songs to count, and much more. I round up 11 of the best new tracks of April in this post, but first, some recent features:
* Scowl reintroduce themselves with remarkable new EP: "“I wanna be a hardcore kid writing pop songs”
* Braid reflect on 25 years of Frame & Canvas, early days, various wave of emo, & more
* Fat Mike talks Punk Rock Museum, end of NOFX, and more
April album reviews: Scowl, Initiate, Jesus Piece, superviolet (ex-Sidekicks), Portrayal of Guilt, Mat Kerekes (Citizen), and Plastic Presidents.
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We've also got an exclusive cloudy red/clear vinyl variant of the new Scowl EP, as well as exclusive variants of Saves The Day's Can't Slow Down (tangerine), the 10th anniversary edition of Citizen's Youth (red, cloudy clear & black), Braid's Frame & Canvas (splatter), the new Portrayal of Guilt (grey in clear), the upcoming Never Ending Game LP (splatter), the upcoming Spy debut LP (splatter), the upcoming Anklebiter 7" (pink), a few Terror records, and we've got a couple variants of the 10th anniversary edition of The Front Bottoms' Talon of the Hawk in stock too.
A note before I get to this month's songs: I didn't include the new Militarie Gun single "Very High" because "Do It Faster" was in this column very recently, but they announced their anticipated debut LP this month and you can revisit our recent podcast interview with vocalist Ian Shelton for more on that, and pick up our exclusive pink marble vinyl variant of the new album.
Read on for my picks of the best songs of April that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order...
Spaced - "Boomerang"
Spaced were already one of the best new hardcore bands around by the time they released last year's Spaced Jams comp, but it's already clear that that comp is far from this band's full potential. Their new two-song single Far Out Hardcore takes the leap; these are the best songs the band have written yet on so many levels. They're tighter, bolder, more creative, more varied, and singer Lexi Reyngoudt shows off a great knack for clean vocals alongside her usual ferocious bark. Spaced have never sounded as catchy as they do on "Boomerang," but it's still one of their heaviest tracks too.
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Home Is Where - "yes! yes! a thousand times yes!"
Home Is Where are nothing if not unpredictable. The Neutral Milk Hotel-goes-emo vibes of 2021's I Became Birds was a startlingly unique record that turned so many heads, and I don't think anyone who listened to that album saw their screamo split with Record Setter coming the following year. Now theys've announced their anticipated new album The Whaler, and lead single "yes! yes! a thousand times yes!" is yet another sharp left turn. Guitarist/vocalist Tilley Komorny, who co-wrote the song alongside lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Brandon MacDonald, says the song "has the most pop elements, while also being one that strays away from a standard pop song structure," and that's a perfect way of putting it. It's one of Home Is Where's poppiest songs and one of their weirdest. It doesn't sound like any of their previous material, but it also doesn't sound like any other band in the world.
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Rancid - "Tomorrow Never Comes"
Rancid have gone through periods of clear evolution at various points in their career, but for their past few records, they've been taking a page out of the Ramones/Bad Religion book by doing the same thing over and over and making it sound distinctly awesome every time. "Tomorrow Never Comes" would've ripped if it was on And Out Come the Wolves, and it rips today too.
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Better Lovers - "30 Under 13"
Every Time I Die went through a contentious breakup that saw vocalist Keith Buckley at odds with the rest of the band, and both sides quickly said they'd be continuing to make music separately. Keith has said he has a new project in the works, and most of the other members are now playing in Better Lovers, including guitarist Jordan Buckley, bassist Stephen Micciche, and drummer Clayton “Goose” Holyoak. Their other guitarist, Andy Williams (aka The Butcher), has been busy with his wrestling career, but Jordan has said they're saving him a spot in the band if/when the timing is right, so instead on second guitar they've got Will Putney, who produced the last two ETID albums (and also plays in Fit For An Autopsy and END). On vocals, they've got the leader of another beloved yet now-defunct metalcore band, Greg Puciato of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Greg's been doing solo stuff lately and hasn't really done metalcore since DEP's 2017 breakup, but he says the tracks Jordan sent him for Better Lovers "woke up a side of me that I thought was fully extinct but was merely evolving and changing." Our first taste is "30 Under 13," which is musically cut from a pretty similar cloth as late-period Every Time I Die, and Greg screams his head off, sounding fully rejuvenated as a harsh vocalist. ETID and DEP both ended on high notes (musically speaking), and this meeting of the minds feels like a natural and thrilling progression for everyone involved.
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Balance and Composure - "Savior Mode"
Balance and Composure's classic first two albums Separation (2011) and The Things We Think We're Missing (2013) have become the gold standard for grunge/emo/post-hardcore hybrids, and there are still tons of bands ripping them off left and right. But B&C themselves moved on from that sound a while ago with their more experimental, genre-blurring third album Light We Made in 2016. It was a pretty drastic departure from the band's sound, and it also ended up being their last album before they broke up in 2019. Well, now they're finally back, with reunion shows announced and two new songs out, and it sounds like they're picking up where they left off and pushing forward once again. "Savior Mode" veers closer to the calmer indie-emo vibes of Light We Made, but it's got the kind of big hooks they were writing on their first two albums. It's a culmination of everything they've done and something entirely new all at once.
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Family Dinner - "Revenge Dress"
Family Dinner are regulars in the Long Island emo scene, and they're making their upcoming debut album with The Movielife/I Am The Avalanche members Vinnie Caruana and Brett Romnes, but their new grunge-punk anthem "Revenge Dress" sounds like a lost gem from '90s rock radio, like Veruca Salt, Everclear, and The Muffs in a blender. The mid/late '90s vibes are strong, but the song is way too refreshing to feel retro. Its big chords and singalong hooks have the power to bring multiple generations together, and its "breakup 'fuck you' song" vibes are timeless.
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Gumm - "Slogan Machine"
Chattanooga, TN's Gumm have been rising up in the hardcore scene, and it's not hard to see why. On new single "Slogan Machine," you can hear echoes of Drug Church's grunge/hardcore hybrids, Touché Amoré's impassioned post-hardcore, and the angular sounds of late '80s/early '90s Dischord, and Gumm put their own spin on all of it. "Slogan Machine" is as gritty as it is catchy, and it gets stuck in your head quick.
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Buggin - "Not Yours"
Chicago hardcore band Buggin have a serious knack for infectious grooves and shoutalong refrains, and they do it without ever softening up their sound. "Not Yours" goes hard, but it's also memorable, addictive, and has a lot of crossover appeal. Vocalist Bryanna Bennett sounds especially fired up on the track, which they call "a more personal one about dealing with the tokenization of being seen as a girl in hardcore," adding, "I’m non-binary and I hate being thrown in ‘female fronted’ categories. We just want to rock without people making it weird or only liking us for that reason."
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Loma Prieta - "Glare"
At this point, Loma Prieta are screamo lifers. They formed in 2005, just as the genre's earlier waves were dying down; they were peers of revivalist bands like Touché Amoré, La Dispute, and Pianos Become the Teeth; and they've remained involved with the even newer wave of screamo bands that began finding their footing in the late 2010s / early 2020s. They haven't released an album in eight years, but that finally changes with Last on 6/30 via Deathwish, and new single "Glare" proves that Loma Prieta sound as remarkable as ever. With help from Josh Staples of The Velvet Teen and The New Trust (who also plays alongside Loma Prieta members in Mare Island), the band offer up six minutes of music that perfectly nail the balance between beauty and aggression. It's classic Loma Prieta and a step forward all at once.
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C.O.F.F.I.N. - "Cut You Off"
C.O.F.F.I.N. hail from Australia, and the sweet hooks and boogie riffs of their new single "Cut You Off" hearken back to their home country's '70s punk pioneers like Radio Birdman and The Saints, but with a raw, gritty exterior and a vocalist who sounds like he's gargling gravel. The band's been around for over a decade and they've self-released most of their music, but their recent tour with Amyl & the Sniffers seems to be bringing them more attention and they just signed to Goner Records in the US, Bad Vibrations in the UK, and Damaged Record Co in Australia and New Zealand. The new single was recorded and produced by Frenzal Rhomb vocalist Jason Whalley and mixed by Mikey Young, and it serves as a great introduction to what this band's been cooking up for years.
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The Bollweevils - "Predisposition"
'90s Chicago punk fans probably remember The Bollweevils--hometown heroes who have gigged with neighboring bands like Naked Raygun, Smoking Popes, 88 Fingers Louie, and Rise Against over the years--and others might remember them from things like Hopeless Records' first Hopelessly Devoted to You comp, but whether you're a longtime fan or a newcomer, "Predisposition" is worth a spin. The Bollweevils were part of the whole driving, melodic wave of '90s punk that labels like Epitaph, Fat, and Lookout! helped popularize, and "Predisposition" off their first full-length in 28 years is cut from that exact same cloth, and it feels just as relevant today as The Bollweevils' classic records did back then.
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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 2023.
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Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.
Read past and future editions of 'In Defense of the Genre' here.