This has been a notable year for hardcore and punk, with several up-and-coming bands continuing to build on the promise of their previous releases and reliably excellent records from more established artists. The scene is as far-ranging as ever, with musicians taking pages from late 1980s New York to Revolution Summer to the heyday of 1990s alternative and noise rock to create memorable hooks and breakdowns. More diverse fans appreciate the music, as it’s grown beyond being painfully white male for much of its existence; it is an exciting development.
Thematically, much of the best punk and hardcore music this year addressed mental health and working through the past while striving for a more peaceful present. However, it wasn’t all navel-gazing. Chat Pile and Cursive took stock of the state of the world on an individual and global scale. Even in a year when the genre’s most noteworthy music is appearing on more general year-end lists, it is worth revisiting ten of the essential records of 2024.
10. Mannequin Pussy – I Got Heaven (Epitaph)
An early highlight of the year, I Got Heaven–the record and the song–are defiant statements whose resonance has only deepened in light of what the next four years will bring. It’s yet another album that bears the influence of the best 1990s alternative rock. I Got Heaven balances the quieter highlights, such as “I Don’t Know You”, with a trio of ragers (“OK? OK! OK? OK!”, “Of Her”, and “Aching”) and several expertly-crafted pop songs, such as the bright, catchy “Nothing Like” and “Sometimes”. However, the highlight is “Loud Bark”, a quiet-to-loud mission statement where Dabice goes from singing to screaming the titular warning. Mannequin Pussy keep improving, and I Got Heaven is 30 minutes of evidence that they are primed to reach larger audiences.
9. Touche Amore – Spiral in a Straight Line (Rise)
Spiral in a Straight Line is another memorable record from Touche Amore, who continue to blend indie and hardcore effortlessly. Working again with Ross Robinson, who also produced their last LP, Lament, this is one of their most accessible releases, a great place to start for the uninitiated. Jeremy Bolm can’t help but wear his heart on his sleeve, and here he has crafted songs that are at once highly personal and hugely relatable. “Nobody’s” questions the ways we perform our lives rather than live them, and other songs’ titles allude to this as well, such as “This Routine” and “Force of Habit”.
It is a fresh spin on the themes of many essential albums released this year. Julien Baker returns on “Goodbye for Now”, and Lou Barlow sings the chorus of his Sebadoh classic “Brand New Love” over the end of “Subversion (Brand New Love)”, is a highlight and a moment where some light breaks through. Bolm’s well-known love of film informs “Hal Ashby”, one of the best songs in the Touche Amore canon, desperate and cathartic.
8. Big Life – If You Like Bad Ideas, It’s a Very Exciting Time (Setterwind)
Big Life’s recent EPs should be in heavy rotation if you like Revolution Summer-inspired melodic hardcore. They keep it fresh by incorporating indie rock touchstones like Hüsker Dü and the more politically-minded Superchunk releases to deliver a short but effective blast of energetic, moody post-hardcore. The group are quickly maturing into defining their sound from the opener, “Here for a Moment”, with a heavier guitar sound than their excellent self-titled EP.
“Bias for Action” ratchets up the stakes further with its seething critique of armchair activism. Big Life return to the more melodic sounds of the first EP with “Adds Up to Nothing”, another Hüsker Dü-adjacent gem. Meanwhile, “Bad Ideas” and “What Doesn’t Kill You” are relentless 1980s hardcore-inspired ragers that recall Rites of Spring and early-era Revelation Records. Fans of newer bands like Praise and Truth Cult (RIP) will find much to like here.
7. GEL – Persona EP (Blue Grape)
GEL’s relentless touring has kept their star on the rise since last year’s Only Constant, and they return with a brief, five-song set that shows off some musical growth without losing their signature sound. This time out, they incorporate a little more metal in their approach, and while tracks like “Persona” and “Mirage” deliver the same thrills as the highlights of Only Constant, “Martyr” and “Vanity” embrace a more metallic edge. At the center of it all is Sami Kaiser, one of the most charismatic and exciting vocalists in hardcore, and her bandmates are more locked in than ever, no doubt the result of the endless touring. This brief teaser only deepens the anticipation for the next full-length release.
6. Cursive – Devourer (Run for Cover)
Devourer is the best Cursive record in years, a primal scream of a midlife crisis record, a howl into the abyss of contemporary American life. While it is not as overtly conceptual as classics like Domestica and The Ugly Organ, it stands alongside those highlights in terms of quality. The band sound positively inspired, incorporating horns and cello to add to the Dischord-inspired guitars. Producer Marc Jacob Hudson knows just where to add and when to subtract, and this is one of the best-sounding Cursive records in their discography.
Musically, Devourer leans into the best parts of Cursive’s typical sound. The driving, energetic tracks like “Botch Job” and “The Avalanche of Our Demise” recall the high points of The Ugly Organ, while “Imposturing” and “Dead End Days” are on the catchier end of their aesthetic, and “Dark Star” is a downright pretty critique of faith. It’s one of the most rewarding returns of a veteran group, leaning into the best aspects of their sound with barbed lyrics tailored to those in a similar life stage, but mindful of how the sins of today will be visited on younger generations.
5. Fucked Up – Another Day (Fucked Up)
After over 20 years, Fucked Up continue to find ways to surprise and delight listeners. Another Day finds them leaning into 1970s-inspired guitars and hard-won optimism that was a perfect summer release. The title track is an anthemic ode to the pleasures of the small wins, and “Tell Yourself You Will” is another driving, upbeat track that summarizes what Fucked Up do so well in this era. It is impossible to resist shouting along to the “We’re the ones that will burn it all down” on “Paternal Instinct”, and closer “House Lights” is a defiant call to live until the end.
After the 2010s saw them taking a series of big swings, Fucked Up have found a sweet spot between that period and their early, incendiary work that strikes a near-perfect balance. It was a busy year for the group, with two other noteworthy releases. Who’s Got the Time and a Half?, written and recorded during a 24-hour period that was live-streamed, was a limited-time, Bandcamp-only release, and then they returned in November with the raucous, poppy Another Day. Over 20 years into their esteemed career, Fucked Up remain essential listening.
4. Chat Pile – Cool World (The Flenser)
Where many of the finest hardcore records this year focused on wrestling with inner demons, Chat Pile found its inspiration in the violence we inflict on each other, whether individually or globally. Their debut full-length, God’s Country, focused on the grim realities of late-stage capitalist America, but as the title implies, Cool World has a global focus and is primarily concerned with war. Highlight “Shame” describes the horrors of watching war footage in an attempt to shake us out of our seeming indifference to the relentless carnage happening in another part of the world.
Elsewhere, “Funny Man” and “Milk of Human Kindness” explore the fallout for those who are engaged in combat, and “Masc” is a critique of toxic male behavior. Elsewhere, cult classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is the inspiration for “Camcorder”, continuing in the spirit of God’s Country highlight “Pamela”. The lyrics on Cool World are the definition of uneasy listening, but the songs are not without hooks, and this is definitely a more accessible record than God’s Country, at least musically. Despite the ripped-from-the-headlines inspirations, Cool World seems destined to stand the test of time like the Blood Brothers’ masterful Crimes critique of this century’s War on Terror has.
3. METZ – Up on Gravity Hill (Sub Pop)
Sadly, it has been recently revealed that METZ will go on hiatus at the end of the tour to support Up on Gravity Hill. However, if it is the last we hear of them, they are ending with their finest work, an adventurous swirl of noise and shoegaze containing some of their biggest swings and best songs, including the epics that open and close the record. Lead track “No Reservation/Love Comes Crashing” lets their trademark repetitive-in-a-good-way riffs breathe and stretch in unexpected ways, and “Light Your Way Home” recalls late-period Husker Du and features guest vocals from Amber Webber of Black Mountain.
Between these points, “Glass Eye” and “Entwined (Street Light Buzz)” deliver the classic, pummeling METZ sound, whereas “99” leans more into post-punk, with a massive chorus. “Wound Tight” and “Superior Mirage” are some of the catchiest songs in their canon. This is METZ blown up to widescreen, delivering an unexpected, unpredictable (alleged) swan song.
2. Gouge Away – Deep Sage (Deathwish, Inc.)
We are lucky even to have a new Gouge Away record. The band worked on and off on Deep Sage for years, weathering cross-country moves and time away for self-care, and while it isn’t exactly a surprise that it is excellent, few records this year have so seamlessly blended alternative and shoegaze elements while retaining this level of ferocity. An immediate album of the year contender, on Deep Sage, Gouge Away unleash a torrent of aggression and catharsis, wrestling with depression, anxiety, misplaced love, and a host of other psychological torments. It was recorded live with vaunted producer Jack Shirley, and it sounds that much more urgent for it.
The band’s trademark relentless riffs are still there on tracks like “Stuck in a Dream”, “No Release”, and “The Sharpening”, but some of the best moments on Deep Sage are the unexpected ones like “A Welcome Change” and closer “Dallas”, which provide space for Christina Michelle to sing and for them to stretch musically, too. Songs like “Overwatering”, the title track, and “Idealized” recall 1990s alternative rock. At another time, Gouge Away would be the toast of the radio-sponsored festivals.
1. Drug Church – PRUDE (Pure Noise)
No band has been doing heavy, hook-laden hardcore better than Drug Church for the past several years, and on PRUDE, they deliver arguably their best collection yet. Lead singer Patrick Kindlon’s lyrics have the precision of the best flash fiction writers. Not a word is wasted. But this time out, there is a more empathic shade to these stories to match the dark humor. Songs like “Mad Care”, “Slide 2 Me”, and “Business Ethics” don’t stray far from the blueprint of darkly funny classics like perennial set closer “Weed Pin”.
There are several hard-luck stories on PRUDE, but one of the more surprising aspects of the lyrics on songs like “Yankee Trails” and “Hey Listen” is the empathy toward their subjects, a friend who just can’t seem to get straight in the former and a billboard of missing kids in the latter. When he sings, “I’m still thinking of this kid / And how some folks are so lucky / And other folks are him”, on “Hey Listen”, it is a different type of gut punch from Kindlon. Elsewhere, his no-frills, no-bullshit philosophy shines on highlights like “Myopic”, “Demolition Man”, and “Chow”.
Closer “Peer Review” serves as a thesis for the record, with its line, “You can’t feel superior to people you’re in it with / These are your peers and you just gotta deal with it.” His bandmates are entirely up to the task, sounding better than ever. Nick Cogan seems to have endless memorable riffs, and the hooks refuse to leave your brain. All ten tracks fly by so relentlessly that you have no choice but to put it on repeat, commit all the words to memory, and wait for the next opportunity to see them live.