50 Best Punk Albums of 2023

Mixing razor-sharp crossover thrash, Riot Grrrl attitude, and the occasional clean-sung hook, the young Ukraine trio Death Pill are a total force on their self-titled debut album. The songs are full of rage and discontent and Death Pill already hit harder and tighter than bands who have been around twice as long as them.

Flying Raccoon Suit’s Bad Time Records debut treks through ska, jazz, punk, klezmer, thrash, metalcore, twinkly emo, reggae, indie rock, and more, usually with at least two or three of these in the same song, and all of it works. It’s a fun, catchy, danceable album that goes down a lot more smoothly than it might sound on paper, and these are meaningful songs that deal with widespread internal struggles in ways that are widely relatable. It’s music that impresses on a technical level and never forgets to connect on an emotional one.

Kerosene Heights’ debut album bottles up musical traits from the last 30 years of emo, from the math rock noodling to the strained scream-singing to the pop-punky hooks, but most importantly, they give off that intangible feeling that the best emo always does. They’re reaching for the notes they can’t quite hit, they’re tearing through the noisy lo-fi exterior that Southeast of Somewhere is working with, and it’s all because there’s something in them that they just need to get out.

With nine songs in less than 18 minutes, Chicago hardcore band Stress Positions (three members of C.H.E.W. + vocalist Stephanie Brooks) tear through an onslaught of high-speed ragers that will rip your fucking face off, with songs that tackle sexuality, religious oppression, law enforcement, and more. Harsh reality indeed.

If you like hardcore punk that actually sounds like punk, don’t sleep on Big Laugh’s debut LP. They cite classic Revelation Records (which they’re also signed to) and Japanese hardcore as core influences, and they’re part of the same fast hardcore lineage that extends from those bands to early Ceremony/Trash Talk to contemporaries like Scowl/Gel. It’s high-speed but still moshable, caustic but also catchy, and it just bangs from start to finish.

The emo underground has veered Midwest-style for years, but Long Island Emo is coming back in a big way. There have been a handful of heavy hitters from on and around the island rekindling the LI emo fire, and Private Mind stand out from the pack. They love the melodic Silent Majority/Movielife stuff as much as the next Long Island band, but they’ve got also got the screamo leanings of On the Might of Princes, and the ambition to add something new to the LI canon, not just engage in worship and tribute. Good, catchy, aggressive emo like The Truth You See transcends all the nostalgia and regional references.

Lessons That We Swear to Keep is Free Throw’s fifth album in a 12-year career, and vocalist Cory Castro will have you know that if he’s still singing about the same issues after all these years, it’s because he’s still dealing with them. Still, Lessons That We Swear to Keep is an emo/pop punk fusion with all the fire and hunger of a rising band. When Cory sing-screams at the top of his lungs, he still sounds like he’s reaching for something.

No idea is too far-fetched for Origami Angel. Having put out an expansive double album in 2021, followed by back-to-back hardcore and jangle pop EPs in 2022, this year they put out a “mixtape,” and they call it that because of how stylistically all-over-the-place The Brightest Days is. They string together Midwest emo, bossa nova, ska, indie pop, metalcore, Beach Boys homages, and more. Some songs are just pure fun, and others tackle more serious topics, like singer/guitarist Ryland Heagy’s recent health issues and the right-wing protestors who flood the streets of DC, where Gami live. It’s refreshing to hear something so whimsical and purposeful all at once.

Since Fucked Up are a rare hardcore band known for releasing rock operas, I’ll say that One Day is kind of their Who’s Next. It follows a series of sprawling, ambitious albums, and it finds the band coming back to earth and just dishing out some great, concise bangers. It also sounds like an arena rock record with a hardcore punk vocalist, and Fucked Up are uniquely equipped to pull that feat off with flying colors. One Day is up there with their catchiest, hardest-hitting records, and it sounds like no other band in the world.

Hardcore so often functions as a form of dance music, and Buggin’s debut LP Concrete Cowboys has some of the best grooves you’ll hear in all of hardcore this year. The way their riffs and rhythms lock in with each other is electric, and their kinetic energy is matched by the caustic aggression of lead vocalist Bryanna Bennett. Bryanna takes shots at a wide variety of assholes, from the ones who tokenize non-men in hardcore to the ones who severely need to touch grass. It’s an album that’ll fire you up and it’s also fun as hell to listen and move to.

With deep roots in the Baltimore/DC area punk and hardcore scene, Truth Cult aren’t just paying homage to the scene’s past; they’re paving the path for its future. You can spend all day rattling off their bonafides–members played in Lion of Judah, Give, Red Death, Pure Disgust, Post Pink, and more; they’ve been co-signed (and literally signed) by Turnstile and Angel Du$t; Jawbox’s J. Robbins has produced all their albums–but none of those facts really matter when you listen to Walk the Wheel. What matters is the interplay between their roaring, charismatic frontperson Paris Roberts and bassist/vocalist Emily Ferrara’s more ethereal counterpoint. What matters is the way Truth Cult blur the line between ’80s Dischord and ’60s garage punk and fully make it their own. It only takes a song or two to realize that Truth Cult are a special band, and Walk the Wheel is their best offering yet.

Pupil Slicer really entered the abyss this year. Kate Davies said the goal for this album was “to further break down the walls between metal, hardcore, shoegaze, electronic music and pop,” and the result is an album that exists totally in a world of its own. It has these bright, soaring, airy pop moments, alongside moments that are brutally heavy, and it all swirls together into something completely cohesive. It makes the band’s already-great 2021 debut LP Mirrors seem run-of-the-mill in comparison.

Eight years since their last album, and 18 years since their first demo, Loma Prieta returned in 2023 to re-stake their claim as one of the best screamo bands around. Last is basically the platonic ideal of a great screamo album; it’s as raw/harsh as it is majestic/beautiful, and it just totally consumes you. No idea what the implication of the album title is, but let’s hope this isn’t the last we hear from Loma Prieta; we’re lucky to have them still firing on all cylinders after all these years.

Against The Rest is one of the best straight-up punk albums of the year, and it’s also one of the best ska albums of the year–in fact, it’s maybe the best ska album of the year. From the band’s fast-paced energy to Adam Davis’ gritty, snotty hooks, this is everything you’ve ever wanted from West Coast punk, ska, and melodic hardcore. It would’ve felt perfectly at home on Lookout! in the late ’80s, and it sounds totally refreshing today. As a ska-punk veteran since his days with Link 80 in the ’90s, it’s obvious from Against The Rest that Adam only has his sights set on the future.

Death Goals are a UK queercore duo where the “-core” is chaotic screamo and mathcore, and A Garden of Dead Flowers is their second and best album yet. It packs a vicious punch, from the crazed riffage to the abrasively-screamed dialog about gender dysphoria, trauma, violence, and more. With songs that are both brutally heavy and strangely catchy, this record is relentless from the lurching intro of “Genderless Clones of Gameshow Hosts” to the sass/dance-punk closer “Faux Macho.” Passive listening is not an option.

Taking Meds sound like the entirety of ’90s guitar rock in a blender, a place where snotty skate punk songs, mallternative rock hits, and more intricate bands like Dinosaur Jr, Jawbox, and Sonic Youth are all on the table. They’re not pretending to reinvent the form, but they do subtly reshape it and add their own flair. They also write extremely catchy songs, and Skylar Sarkis packs his hooks with clever, witty lyrics that–in his words–“show, don’t tell.” Dial M For Meds isn’t Skylar telling you how he feels; it’s him painting a picture and letting you see it however which way you do.

In just six songs, Kalamazoo, MI’s Saturdays At Your Place emerged as one of this year’s finest emo torch-carriers. (Then they did two more and a collab later on their split with Summerbruise and Shoplifter.) They dish out so many earwormy tricks on Always Cloudy, from their youthful yelps to their communal gang vocals, from mathy Midwest noodling to dance parts and maximalist chamber pop. They have moments that recall any handful of beloved emo bands from over the years, but it never feels like they’re imitating any one or two bands in particular. There are moments when the EP is bursting at the seams with ambition, and SAYP cover more ground in 18 and a half minutes than some bands ever do on a full-length. This feels like the work of a band who are about to do very great things.

On the surface, Never Ending Game seem like one of the toughest, heaviest hardcore bands around, but dig deeper into their sophomore Outcry, and you’ll find a lot more there than aggression. Not unlike Trapped Under Ice (whose Justice Tripp and Sam Trapkin both appear on Outcry‘s “Never Die”), N.E.G. use brash sounds as a vessel to look inwards–vocalist Mike Petroski often uses this album to examine his own psyche and mental health. The band was also more concerned with “pop” song structure on this LP than on earlier releases, and that’s reflected in the melodic thrash and metalcore riffs, and refrains that feel like real choruses. There are moments on Outcry where Never Ending Game sound like they should be whipping up walls of death at Ozzfest, but still with the raw sincerity of a band who literally plays VFWs.

Year of the Knife’s whole year has sadly had the shadow of the band’s severe car crash looming over it, but 2023 was also the year that YOTK released one of their best albums yet. No Love Lost is their first with longtime member Madi Watkins–who was left in critical condition by the crash–taking over on lead vocals, and Madi’s ferocious screams give YOTK a fresh new appeal. Sanguisugabogg’s Devin Swank and Full of Hell’s Dylan Walker also add their voices to the madness, and the rest of the band just bulldozes through this record, providing a total onslaught for its brief-but-intense 20-minute runtime. It looks like the band is finally ready to play again, so let’s hope 2024 is the year that YOTK get to bring these killer songs to life.

A lot of modern metalcore gets talked about within the context of its relation to the late ’90s / early 2000s, but Jesus Piece’s new LP …So Unknown sounds like the future. Produced by Randy Leboeuf (Every Time I Die, The Acacia Strain, etc), it’s got a sleek exterior with elements of industrial and noise, and Jesus Piece’s bludgeoning chugs and throat-shattering screams only sound even heavier amidst all the atmosphere. If …So Unknown‘s not the most menacing metalcore album of 2023–and it might be–it’s certainly the most bleak.

Toronto melodic hardcore band Mil-Spec aren’t on social media, they don’t do many interviews, they don’t tour much; they just let the music do the talking. And when the music’s as good as it is on Marathon–their first album in three years that dropped in October with very little warning–that’s all you need. They’re part of the long lineage of melodic hardcore that spans from 7Seconds to Dag Nasty to Turning Point to Modern Life Is War to Title Fight–the last of whom’s Ned Russin co-produced this album–and they tip their hats to a variety of forebears while always bringing something new to the table. Marathon feels like the past 40 years of melodic hardcore condensed into one ripping album, and it’s all tied together by vocalist Andrew Peden’s passionate, tuneful screams.

Screaming Females were practically the definition of “lifers,” so it came as a total shock when they called it quits this month after 18 years. It’s so sad to see them go, but at least they’re going out with one of the most rewarding albums of their entire career. Desire Pathway finds the shreddy NJ punk trio leaning into what they’ve always done best, and coming out with some of the strongest songs they’ve ever written. Desire Pathway has everything you want from Screaming Females–Marissa Paternoster’s howling voice and heroic guitar solos, King Mike and Jarrett Dougherty’s rock-solid rhythm section–and some of the catchiest choruses of their career. Even in a catalog that’s been full of gems, this one stands out.

Jeff Rosenstock simply does not miss. He personally says that his new album HELLMODE “feels like the chaos of being alive right now,” and that is a good way to describe an album that simultaneously re-imagines King of the Beach as political protest music (“HEAD”) and laments the drought in California over gorgeous bedroom-folk (“HEALMODE”). It has some of the catchiest songs Jeff’s ever written, as well as some of the weirdest, and it all perfectly works within the context of this chaotic album.

Nearly 20 years into his career, former Fake Problems leader Chris Farren has made one of his most addictive albums yet. The big, crunchy power pop of Doom Singer is like the best Weezer album in years, but with the unique spin that only Chris Farren can bring. If the radio still played rock bands, “Bluish” and “Cosmic Leash” would’ve been two of this year’s biggest hits–those choruses are explosive. There’s a lot more magic where those singles came from, and some cool detours too, like the sophisti-pop of “First Place.” In a world of doom, we need more flat-out fun rock records like Doom Singer.

In an era where regional scenes tend to have less of an identity than ever, there’s still no place like Texas, where the metal and punk scenes are one and the same. That’s reflected in so many heavy bands from The Lone Star State, especially the latest Judiciary album. It’s one of the most monstrous thrash albums of the year and also one of the most fiery hardcore punk albums. It’s obviously a line that’s been toed before, but Judiciary toe it in a way that takes me by surprise every time, with songs that will rip your heart out.

With witty observations on everything from dating a more traditionally successful partner to internet shit-talk, Ohio’s Equipment have crafted one of the most endearing emo albums of the year. In classic DIY emo fashion, it’s raw/scrappy yet bursting with ambition, hyper personal yet widely relatable. And it’s full of range, from slowcore to math rock to Weezer worship with plenty of off-kilter ground covered in between.

XL Life formed out of the ashes of the Cardiff grime group Astroid Boys, but this new band finds the boys diving head-first into hardcore. The comparisons to Turnstile (with British accents) are hard to ignore, but when the songs are this energetic and the hooks are this irresistible, it doesn’t matter if XL Life sound a little like hardcore’s current biggest band. They also inject their songs with jazz, grime (including a Bob Vylan guest verse), glitchy electronics, and danceable polyrhythms, earning the “genre-defying” descriptor in a very meaningful way.

With The Gray In Between, one of the most influential screamo bands of all time returns with a record like no other in their catalog. They brought in Loma Prieta’s Sean Leary on guitar and teamed back up with veteran screamo producer Jack Shirley to make the most purely beautiful, widely accessible album of their career without sacrificing any of their usual darkness or fury. The Gray In Between really solidifies Jeromes Dream not just as influential vets but as true lifers who are still making steps forward.

From their insistent rhythms to Sami Kaiser’s caustic shouts to the subtly catchy melodies, Gel have written one of this year’s most enduring hardcore records. It’s just off the beaten path enough to earn Gel’s self-proclaimed “hardcore for the freaks” designation, but also inviting enough for really any type of hardcore fan to get on board with. It makes sense that they’ve spent this year playing with everyone from Drain to Thursday to Screaming Females to Gorilla Bisuits–they might be freaks, but they seem to fit in everywhere.

From the blastbeat-infused melodic hardcore of album opener “Bitter Sun” to the ambient pop of centerpiece “Window,” this is not an album you can judge from just one song. It’s got Midwest emo noodling, fast-paced punk, folky acoustic guitars, sugar-sweet harmonies, and shoutalong-ready gang vocals. They have the humble sound of a DIY basement band, but Magazine Beach feel like they’re reaching for something much greater. It’s one of those remarkable, fully-formed debut albums that’s just too good to ignore.

Dreamwell did not have to go this hard; In My Saddest Dreams, I Am Beside You is a post-hardcore triumph that makes its already-great predecessor Modern Grotesque seem like a warm-up in comparison. Throughout an ebbing-and-flowing musical landscape that connects the dots between Botch, Envy, Mineral, and At the Drive-In, Dreamwell deliver a concept album that follows a character with Borderline Personality Disorder navigating an array of internal and external struggles. Vocalist KZ Staska tells these impactful stories through a series of shrieks, speak-shouts, and melodic cleans, all delivered with crippling sincerity.

Open City share two members with Paint It Black, who also put out a new album this year (spoiler: it’s next on this list), but these two albums are entirely different beasts. Dan Yemin (who sings in PIB and played guitar in Lifetime and Kid Dynamite) is on guitar here, and he’s pulling from all kinds of classic hardcore and post-hardcore influences and shaping them into something that feels totally new, while vocalist Rachel Rubino (ex-Bridge and Tunnel) delivers some of the most powerful, impassioned lyrics and vocal performances of her career. It’s a dark, heavy, angular record, and once you’re sucked in, it’s nearly impossible to stay away from.

Famine is basically a lesson in how to age gracefully within hardcore. It’s Paint It Black’s first new record in ten years, and it comes over 30 years since Dan Yemin first started playing in notable hardcore bands, and it sounds as raw and urgent and vital as any great hardcore album should, no caveats needed. From the very first lyric (“This is the America of fable”), you can tell that this album is a reflection of the bleak world it’s being released into, and Paint It Black reflect and respond to that world with all the darkness, anger, and power that you can ask for.

Justice Tripp has always marched to the beat of his own drum, and Brand New Soul is no exception, but it also feels like an especially rewarding album to the fans that stuck with Justice throughout all of his unpredictable turns. If you want the loud, fast, catchy, genre-defying hardcore that made Angel Du$t’s earlier work so ahead of its time, that’s here; and if you want the softer, janglier vibes of Angel Du$t’s later material, that’s here too. If you want the version of Justice Tripp that’s full of contradictions, that refuses to conform, that feeds off the energy of a riotous crowd, that’s all over Brand New Soul. It feels like a culmination of everything Angel Du$t have ever done, and yet another step forward.

Death and depression are inevitable, so instead of entirely wallowing in it, Spanish Love Songs have written an album about the journey of making it through. It’s full of sadness and melancholy, but it feels hopeful too. It’s an album that finds widespread relatability in hyper-specific moments, and it’s full of huge hooks that beg to be sung back in the band’s faces. It’s also Spanish Love Songs’ most musically unique record yet, a seamless fusion of heartland rock, pop punk, and emo that never fits neatly into any pre-established subgenre.

Having played as a tight-knit unit for the better part of two decades, The Menzingers were feeling the need to change things up, so they headed out to the desert–the famed Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, Texas, to be exact–and made a record like no other in their career. Produced by Brad Cook (Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby, etc), Some of It Was True is the most spacious Menzingers yet. There’s room to slow things down, room to let guitars ring out like never before, room to fuck with their usual formula. But it’s also so clearly and distinctly a Menzingers album, and these are some of the band’s best songs yet. Their perspective on life continues to evolve, and their ability to write ragged, singalong anthems just seems to get stronger and stronger.

When Fiddlehead formed nearly a decade ago, they saw themselves as a part-time side project; now, they’re a band with a trilogy of beloved full-length albums. Death Is Nothing To Us is the thematic conclusion to what began on 2018’s Springtime and Blind and 2021’s Between the Richness, and it’s one of Fiddlehead’s best albums yet. It’s full of profound, passionate thoughts and feelings about life and death, a love of classic melodic hardcore and post-hardcore, and some of the most enduring hooks this band has ever written.

Pick up our exclusive pinwheel vinyl variant.

Most bands with a penchant for menacing thrash/groove metal riffs also revel in dark, evil imagery, but Drain is what happens when evil finds light. From their fun-in-the-sun artwork to the beach balls and boogie boards at their ridiculously awesome live shows to vocalist Sammy Ciaramitaro’s bright demeanor, Drain is a tough-sounding band but they’re also a bright, fun party that everyone’s invited to. Living Proof picks up where the band’s great 2020 debut LP California Cursed left off, captures the energy of their live show, and works in some new tricks like a hip hop interlude and a clean-sung Descendents cover. And underneath the colorful exterior and gut-punching riffage, Sammy opens up and injects this album with sincerity and vulnerability. It’s a multi-faceted album that reveals itself to be deeper and deeper with every listen.

Having started out as Anaiah Lei’s solo project, Zulu is now a full, collaborative band, and with all these different voices and contributors, they’ve crafted an album that sounds like nothing else in the world right now. The bulk of the album is heavy, metallic hardcore with an overwhelming amount of groove, and they also seamlessly dip their toes into psychedelic soul, jazz, and hip hop, along with samples that bring reggae and Afrobeat into the equation too. Anaiah’s growl is contrasted by drummer Christine Cadette’s higher-pitched screams, along with guest vocals from Soul Glo’s Pierce Jordan, Playytime’s Obioma Ugonna, and Truth Cult’s Paris Roberts. From the diasporic approach to genre to much of the lyrical content, it’s an album that celebrates Blackness and challenges the expectations that Black art should reflect trauma. It’s also truly an album-oriented work of art, a force of its own that stands tall next to the power of Zulu’s live show.

When Koyo debuted with their 2020 debut EP Painting Words Into Lines, it seemed like they were explicitly paying homage to Long Island emo and melodic hardcore greats like Silent Majority, The Movielife, and early Taking Back Sunday, but with their full-length debut Would You Miss It?, they’ve written an album that rivals their heroes and deserves its own place in not just the Long Island emo canon, but the emo canon in general. It’s firmly connected to the hardcore scene that the members have all been part of in other bands for years, and it’s also got polished modern production and unabashedly big hooks that put Koyo in the same orbit as a band like The Story So Far. It’s a reminder that the best ‘genre revival’ bands aren’t just about familiar tricks; they’re also always about new perspective.

Teenage Halloween are like the personification of a perfect basement show; raw and scrappy on the outside but exploding with big singalongs and big hearts. Their sophomore album Till You Return is just all energy and catharsis for its entire 30-minute runtime. Luk Hendricks remains a magnetic singer, yeller, and lyricist, and this album has more of Tricia Marshall’s songs and it’s great to hear the way her singing and songwriting blends and contrasts with Luk’s. Till You Return is just about everything I could ask for from a melody-forward punk rock record–deceptively simple, effortlessly catchy, and full of raw emotion.

Citizen celebrated the 10th anniversary of their debut album Youth with the biggest shows of their career this year, but they also reminded the world that this is not a band that relies on nostalgia. They’ve been evolving their sound and becoming a stronger band at every turn, and their new album Calling The Dogs is at least a contender for the best Citizen album yet. It’s like a culmination of everything Citizen have ever done, from jangly indie rock to twitchy dance-punk to forceful post-hardcore, and also a clear step forward. Produced by Rob Schnapf, it’s the warmest-sounding Citizen album yet, and it’s full of enduring choruses and quality control. So many potential singles, zero duds.

On Cerebral Circus, Initiate are going for it like never before. It’s one of the catchiest and meanest hardcore records of the year, and it completely ignores subgenre barriers without ever biting off more than it can chew. Heavy metallic hardcore, post-rocky screamo, grunge, shoegaze, and power pop all have a place on this LP, and Initiate frequently combine two or more of those things in entirely unexpected ways. Crystal Pak primarily sticks to a ferocious bark, but when she does belt the melodic chorus of “The Surface” or delivers the spoken word and pained shouts of “Transparency,” she shows off a striking amount of range. The possibilities of where this band could go next seem endless.

It’s kinda crazy to think that Scowl only released 10 minutes and 22 seconds of music in 2023, because this has been a huge year for them. From being a rare hardcore band at Coachella to selling out several dates of their own headlining tour, they’ve been an unstoppable force, and it’s clearly only the beginning. However brief, the five songs on the Psychic Dance Routine EP have been the fuel for all this fire. Their foray into melodic alternative rock on “Opening Night,” the title track, and half of “Shot Down” has helped open Scowl up to entire new audiences, while the ferocious hardcore punk of “Wired,” “Sold Out,” and the other half of “Shot Down” has continued to make them a force for the moshers and stagedivers. These are easily the five best songs Scowl have written yet, and some of the most replayable songs I’ve heard all year. The art of the perfect 7″ is a time-tested, sought-after quest in hardcore, and with Psychic Dance Routine, Scowl have made theirs.

In the world of emo-ish pop punk, 2023 belongs to Hot Mulligan. They took the leap, headlining one of the year’s most stacked package tours in their genre and selling out very decent-sized clubs in the process, and it’s all because of Why Would I Watch. This album is just hit after hit, with all the deep emotional honesty and voice-cracking catharsis you could ever want from this style of music. They played every song on the album when I saw them in NYC in November, and every single one was a massive crowd singalong. Sometimes you just know you’re witnessing a classic in the making, and this was one of those times.

MSPAINT’s debut album feels like a trip back in time and a journey into the future all at once. Their raucous synthpunk and lead shouter Deedee’s charismatic presence feel transported into 2023 from the early 2000s warehouse art punk scene, but MSPAINT sound like they’re two steps ahead. They flirt with both hip hop and hardcore, they don’t fit neatly anywhere, and they’ve filled Post-American with some of the most strangely catchy songs I’ve heard in the last few years. Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton and Soul Glo’s Pierce Jordan both lend their voices (and the former also co-produced with Taylor Young), and MSPAINT also toured with both of those bands this year. They don’t sound like either of those bands, but they work perfectly with both of them because their range is so wide. It’s kinda rare to get a band that’s this confident and fully-formed and also this purely weird right off the bat, and MSPAINT really are all of those things.

For those who frequented the Emo Twitterverse of 2018, it’s hard to forget the impact awakebutstillinbed left with their debut album what people call low self​-​esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you. The San Jose band seemingly came out of nowhere, and those who heard Shannon Taylor’s ability to go from a whisper to a roar were usually either hooked, confused, or both. The best vocalists and songwriters are so often the ones that are also a little bit jarring, and Shannon very much fits that bill. On their long-awaited sophomore album chaos takes the wheel and i am a passenger, they have made an album that might be even better than their beloved debut. Like a cross between Rainer Maria and late-period Fugazi, it’s as beautiful as it is abrasive, as raw and intimate as it is larger-than-life. With multiple climactic songs that hover around the 6/7/8 minute mark, it’s not an album that lends itself to passive listening. chaos takes the wheel is something you really need to immerse yourself in, and when you do, it’s nothing short of mesmerizing.

Ian Shelton has long been a staple of the hardcore scene, but with Militarie Gun, he wanted to make a Big Rock Record. He kept one foot planted in the hardcore world the whole time, but he also allowed himself to write the most catchy, most earnest songs he could, without holding anything back, and the result is one of the year’s most addictive records–in rock, punk, hardcore, or otherwise. It ranges from arena-sized rock anthems to sunny power pop to gnarly post-hardcore, and it rarely takes its foot off the gas. It’s full of songs that would’ve been all over the radio in the ’90s, but also reminds you that alternative rock came from punk/hardcore in the first place. It makes sense that Militarie Gun have been covering Hüsker Dü a bunch; they’re one of that band’s most promising spiritual successors.

Pick up our exclusive pink marble vinyl variant.

Fireworks toured their asses off for about a decade straight until retreating from the public eye in 2015. But the band wasn’t over; they were slowly and quietly working on their best album yet. They surprise-released Higher Lonely Power on New Year’s Day, and they haven’t done much else since then–they gave just one interview that accompanied the album’s release and played an extremely select amount of shows in support of it–but the music speaks for itself. Higher Lonely Power is an art rock masterwork that’s in an almost entirely different universe than the pop-punky material that preceded it. The raging post-hardcore of opening track “God Approved Insurance Plan” is really the only song on this album that feels “punk” in the traditional sense. From there, they dive into lurching rhythms and eerie soundscapes that recall records like Sufjan Stevens’ Age of Adz, Radiohead’s Kid A, and The Notwist’s Neon Golden, while tackling subjects like Christian trauma and mortality. Higher Lonely Power has moments where Fireworks’ hard-hitting rhythm section reminds you this band did cut their teeth for years in the punk scene (“Funeral Plant,” “Blood in the Milk,” “Veins In David’s Hand”), and those moments are just as crucial as the far-out passages in songs like “Jerking Off the Sky” and “Machines Kept You Alive.” It’s an album that sets no limits for itself, an album that prioritizes experimentation and communal choruses in equal measure, and one of the boldest, strongest, most remarkable records released this year in any style of music.

The Whaler is not exactly protest music, it’s not exactly a record full of hopelessness, and it’s not exactly a record about acceptance. It’s, to quote the band, a “concept record about getting used to things getting worse.” It’s a reflection of coming of age at a time where you’re forced to navigate a dying world. Part of the album was inspired by 9/11, which happened when singer Brandon McDonald was just a child; for Home Is Where and many of their fans, a post-9/11 world is all they know. The Whaler is the soundtrack to so many people’s realities.

Brandon has wanted to write concept albums ever since she heard Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, and that album is clearly a musical influence on The Whaler, as is everything from bright indie pop to abrasive screamo. The band proudly waves the “emo” flag, though I would wager that they sound nothing like the average person’s definition of emo. That said, emo–like hardcore and punk before it–is just as much a community as it is a style of music, and Home Is Where have been making that community a much better place. Led by two trans women–Brandon and guitarist/co-songwriter Tilley Komorny–Home Is Where have cultivated a fanbase that genuinely feels like a safe and encouraging space for queer people, trans people, and really anyone who felt alienated by the straight, cis, white, male-dominated emo scenes of yesteryear. The music world in general has needed a band like this for a long time; a band with powerful, thought-provoking music and a radical worldview that’s not just accepting of all walks of marginalized lives and identities but inviting them.