Sydney’s Itchy and the Nits are back with their sophomore album, chronicling the joys of telling lies, stinky stinky men, and nudie beaches. For a taste of summer in the darkest of times, look only to Itchy and the Nits to toss you a swimsuit and make a splash.
Following their scrappy debut EP and two years touring across the US, EU, and Japan, the Nits have amplified the charm, crisped up production, and continued on their mission of spunky, fast punk akin to the Ramones meeting Courtney Bartnett at a beachfront concessions stand. Greetings from Itchy and the Nits is rife with hits and slam-danceable classics. Boasting only 22 minutes of runtime, the 12 track album is endlessly repeatable.
The Nits are full of fun, but there’s also…
Category: punk
For a band that has always cultivated a unique and idiosyncratic sound, New Age Doom appears to have fully mastered their craft on Angels Against Angels. The album demonstrates a confident command of arrangement and atmosphere, tactically marshalling diverse musical elements while seamlessly integrating multiple genres. At the same time, it advances a spiritual message rooted in equality, love and truth.
Sparkling with elements of jazz, experimental, electronic, progressive rock and dub, the record is elevated further by the unmistakable vocals and lyricism of H.R. (Human Rights), frontman of the legendary band Bad Brains. Angels Against Angels uproots disparate sonic textures and intricately fuses them with both playfulness…
Released on handsome red splatter vinyl for its 45th birthday, the 1981 debut by Edinburgh’s finest has lost none of its ferocity with the passing of time and is as divisive now as it was back then. A vital, hardcore-infused re-statement of the uncompromising principles of 1977 or the retrograde acme of cliched and cartoonish punk? Neither point of view is without its merits.
In 1981, there were plenty of reasons to believe that UK punk was indeed dead. Sid, who was punk, was dead while his former colleague John Lydon was releasing experimental records like The Flowers of Romance. The Clash were making funky pop singles and the Damned goth pop ones; even stalwarts Sham 69 had split after the lamentable The Game. Meanwhile, Wattie Buchan…
Third Man Records have released the first-ever live anthology from Ann Arbor, MI–based noise rock legends Laughing Hyenas.
That Girl – Live Recordings 1986–1994 collects 18 ferocious tracks, painstakingly compiled by founding member John Brannon from his personal archive of cassette tapes, then transferred, mixed, and mastered by Grammy® Award–winning producer Bobby Emmett (known for his work with Sturgill Simpson, Jack White, and The Sights).
The collection captures the band’s full-on sonic groove assault in its purest, most unadulterated, and gloriously abrasive form. Highlights include such hard-hitting classics as “Here We Go Again,” recorded live for NYC’s famed WNYU in 1990.
If ever a band deserved an LP of live material…
Getting so obsessed with a band that you book a local show just to see them play — we need more freaks like that in the world, and that’s what Merge Records’ Mike Krol did this spring when he put together a bill featuring himself, Shannon Shaw’s new group Voilà!, and this not-so-known New Orleans duo Twisted Teens, Krol’s recent fixation, here in Los Angeles. “I blasted it in the car at night with the windows down, tracked down records, mailordered merch like I was 16, and all of a sudden I felt excited about THE CREATION OF MUSIC again,” he wrote on Instagram. “I couldn’t believe a band I didn’t even know existed at the beginning of this year made — quite possibly — my favorite record of the past 2 decades.” Amen, Mike. This shit tears.
On 21st December 2025, Swedish post-hardcore stalwarts Refused played their final gig in the group’s hometown of Umeå. A sweaty and teary affair, Refused unleashed a rolling broadside over a brisk 90 minutes, unfurling the entirety of the band’s dedication to weighty and outspoken hardcore in a fierce and conclusive salvo.
As tastefully monochrome images of the band embracing were dragged and dropped onto social pages, you would assume that after thirty-plus years of sonic vitriol the group might sit back for a bit of R&R; a bit of fika maybe? Maybe this would have been the right move considering the sum of their next enterprise: doom metal/free jazz/noise-rock project, Backengrillen.
Comprising Refused’s vocalist Dennis Lyxzén,…
One of many bands to have explored the country’s more perilous frontiers of DIY culture, Brighton-based bass & drum sludge-punk-noise-rock duo Human Leather finally slam their fury down on tape with their long-awaited debut album, Here Comes the Mind, There Goes the Body. An album that underlines the world’s incessant failures, Human Leather don’t mince their words, rightfully pissed off and unafraid to tells us about it.
The tripwire tension between the two-piece assault team of Amée Chanter and Thomas Close is like a calcified ball of bile and rage. Renowned for their intense live shows, so often the sharp-edged ferocity of a band’s live performance is blunted between the studio walls. Not the case here, however, and it’s thanks to…
To parse the logic of Sex Mad, one must first inhabit the isolation of 1985 Victoria, British Columbia: a provincial capital where middle-class security doubled as a picturesque cemetery for the newly wed and nearly dead. Here, as the looming artifice of Expo 86 threatened to modernize the coast, the Pacific horizon acted as a literal dead-end and the Wright brothers’ basement as a laboratory. While the global hardcore scene was calcifying into a thudding caricature – The Exploited’s gurning pantomime merging with the metal-hocked bluster of the US crossover set – Rob and John Wright were busy deconstructing the very physics of the power trio.
When guitarist Andy Kerr completed the circuit, internal pressure reached a critical mass.
For years, Angel Du$t was Justice Tripp’s balmy reprieve from Trapped Under Ice. When he fronted the Baltimore hardcore band, he cursed out ice queens and swore he’d “stay cold forevermore” to protect his heart. These tormented songs were molded by the trauma and violence that Tripp endured during his hardscrabble upbringing. Angel Du$t’s 2014 debut, A.D., with its pink cover art and perky pop-punk sound, showed that he was learning to leave the past behind and warm up a bit. On subsequent Angel Du$t records, the music got even softer, the imagery cozier, and Tripp’s lyrics, which once focused almost solely on heartbreak and regret, became intoxicated by the fumes of romance (“Deep Love,” “Big Ass Love,” “Love Slam”) and rock’n’roll…
On their previous album, 2022’s Solidaritine, Gogol Bordello shifted more towards a hardcore punk sound, driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 2026 doesn’t offer much in the way of hope on that front, but the band has moved back to their wide-open, global music influences, delivering tunes that mash up multiple genres and layers of musicality on We Mean It, Man!
For Solidaritine, Eugene Hütz worked with NYHC legend Walter Schreifels (Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand) on production duties to tighten the focus. This go-around, he brought on board both Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Amyl & The Sniffers, IDLES) and Adam “Atom” Greenspan (Amyl & The Sniffers, IDLES) to broaden the sound.
The excellent opening title track begins with…
Since 2023’s Doom Loop, Dream Nails have changed. After slimming down to a three-piece, they’ve lost a bandmate but gained a new lead vocalist with bassist Mimi Jasson stepping into the role. Consequently, their third album, You Wish, feels different. On ‘The Only Way Is Through’, the opening guitar stabs and intensifying drums give way to a laid-back bassline and soothing vocals, rather than bursting into fury, while ‘This Is Water’ presents an infectious stream of dreamy alternative rock. ‘Organoid’ brings back that familiar anarchic intensity, with lyrics reflecting on the merciless march of technology, and the delivery flipping between detached acceptance and vicious emotional turmoil.
Modified vocals, notably on the thumping…
CBGB’s was the center of the N.Y.C. punk explosion, as well as a welcoming place to play for all the artists and bands who followed in the wake. CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 is a four-disc set that seeks to paint a picture of the original scene as it burst out into the open as well as detailing the various sounds and movements, like no wave and hardcore, that were born in the ensuing years. All the groups one would hope for are here, represented by slightly deeper cuts — Talking Heads’ sprightly live version of “A Clean Break” for one — along with a ton of lesser-known bands and a healthy dose of super-obscure ones. It’s the kind of collection where even someone with a healthy knowledge of the scene will be constantly surprised. One surprise element…
Rock ‘n’ roll needs two things to be successful: a biting riff, and a playful groove. It’s what distinguishes The Rolling Stones from The Animals, The Jam from AC/DC and The Stone Roses from Oasis. The responsibility is shared between the lead guitarist and those following in the rhythm section. It’s not enough to rock, you also have to roll. Luckily, Hot Face have got the mixture right on their biting debut Automated Response: a bracing, unabashed thrill ride with as much emphasis on the bass grooves as the power-charged electric guitars. Combine the giddy impishness of Ash’s 1977 and the savage, carnal energy from The Who’s A Quick One, While He’s Away, and this is probably the album you’ll get.
Emotionally coiled guitars cement “Liar”, aided…
You can cling onto the rambunctiousness of youth, refusing to grow up; you can swerve hard into maturity, peel the stickers off your guitar, and hope that critical adulation follows.
On their seventh LP, Joyce Manor find a fine middle ground, and the result is their best record since 2012’s Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired. There’s a wistfulness to these nine tracks, which see the band journeying backwards to examine their pasts, but refusing to force profundity where there isn’t any to find. On the title track, Barry Johnson sings “I used to go to this bar / Back when I didn’t have a car / ‘cause it was close to my apartment / So that was just as far as I went.” Reflection on time past is theme enough for this record, whether or not the memories are inherently dramatic;…
How do you get the Buzzcocks sound? Steve Diggle says that’s like a chef revealing his secrets, but admits that one crucial ingredient is his old H&H amp. This was acquired almost 50 years ago with the advance the band got for signing to United Artists – you can see it on the cover of Going Steady. “It gives that transistorised valve sound and you can hear it very distinctively on that first album,” he explains. “In Manchester, people wondered why we used these little amps, but it meant you could get distortion at a very low volume and that became our identity. Double track a riff through the H&H amp and you get that unique Buzzcocks sound.”
The double-tracked H&H riff pops up a few times on Attitude Adjustment, a reminder…
The Damned return with a personal and celebratory record, Not Like Everybody Else, a tribute to the band’s late guitarist Brian James, who passed away in March 2025.
The album includes 10 brand new recordings of covers by some of the artists that influenced Brian on his musical journey and inspired the rest of the band. Kicking off with R. Dean Taylor’s “Ghost In My House” and moving through classics like Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” and The Animals’ “When I Was Young”.
The album closes with “The Last Time,” a moving track featuring Brian James himself, pieced together from original live performances and remixed for this release, cementing the record as both a tribute and a farewell.
San Diego in the ’90s was a great place to be if you were a weird punk kid. A conservative Navy town on the surface, the hardcore underground churned out innovative bands at a furious clip, with the bleeding edge of the scene revolving around Gravity Records and its standard-bearers, Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Balancing nihilistic fervor with a ragged poetic sensibility, these bands transmuted post-adolescent angst into timeless invectives against boredom and apathy. After Heroin broke up in 1993, guitarist Scott Bartoloni joined with vocalist Matt Goldsby, bassist Ryan Noel, and drummer Mario Rubalcaba to form Clikatat Ikatowi. Combining the intensity of hardcore with the epic soundscapes of local noise rock exemplars Drive Like Jehu, Clikatat Ikatowi quickly…
Nearly three decades since their debut, Good Charlotte return with Motel Du Cap, a raw, heartfelt revival that bridges nostalgic pop-punk spirit with seasoned emotional depth.
From the grind of Waldorf, Maryland, to selling over 11 million albums worldwide, Good Charlotte didn’t play by the rules; they smashed them. With fists-in-the-air bangers like ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous’, ‘I Just Wanna Live’, and ‘The Anthem,’ they wore their hearts like battle scars and never backed down.
There’s something poetic about a band rediscovering its spark in a place as dreamlike as the south of France. For Good Charlotte, it was a private wedding gig at the illustrious Hotel du Cap in 2023 that reignited the flame.
…featuring the 2024 remix by Mike Kennerty as well as the original mix (remastered).
My Brain Hurts is the third studio album by the Chicago-based punk rock band Screeching Weasel originally released in September 1991 through Lookout Records. It was the group’s first album on Lookout as well as the only release with bassist Dave Naked and the first with drummer Dan Panic, the latter of which would go on to appear on several of the band’s albums.
The album marked a very distinct stylistic shift for the group, fully moving toward a Ramones-inspired sound and completely abandoning their previous hardcore punk influences as a condition made by vocalist Ben Weasel when reforming the band after a brief break-up.
Since 2006, the singular Toronto rock ‘n’ roll institution Fucked Up have been releasing a series of long, sprawling, ambitious records named after years of the Chinese Zodiac calendar. Over the next year, they will finally complete that project, releasing the three final Zodiac records as an ongoing series that’ll eventually make up a five-LP series called Grass Can Move Stones. The first of the three installments is called Year of the Goat, and it was supposed to come out next week. Instead, it’s up on Bandcamp today, presumably for Bandcamp Friday reasons.
There are two tracks on Year of the Goat, and they’re about a half-hour long each.
…There’s a whole lot of lore to Year of the Goat, which is apparently just one part of…