Another year, another Best of 20XX post

Orbiting Punk Picks for 2024

Another year, another obligatory post about music I liked from the most recent pocket of time.

In this case 2024, my listening habits saw a weirdly high amount of revisiting old stuff rather than exploring the latest releases. So a bit of a mix of nostalgia listening with curious delving into new-to-me veins.

I did enjoy a few new albums quite a lot so here’s another Best of 2024 list to add to the mountain of emails (bless you and your family for having a Substack).

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

This album exceeded my expectations for it going in and grew on me more with repeat listens. Mannequin Pussy (MP) originally caught attention due to their unique blend of shoegaze with '90s-inspired alt-rock but they’ve truly outdone themselves.

“Sometimes” was one of my favorite songs this year, full stop, and for it to transition so elegantly into my favorite hardcore track of the year, “Ok? Ok! Ok? Ok!,” put my headphones in a chokehold for months.

MP oozes power and swagger on those tracks but the whole record bursts with emotion ranging from outward rage to introspective contemplations. It’s uncontainable.

They’ve received a lot of hype and attention this year (see Rolling Stone magazine’s story and all the EOY mentions in major music outlets) but it’s been a long time coming. This record deserves it. MP deserves it.

They’ve broken out of the underground somewhat and are starting to bring attention to the genre. I saw them live a few months back and felt overjoyed to see so many young people gravitating towards this band and by extension punk again.

Other standout tracks to mention: “Aching”, “Loud Bark,” and “I Don’t Know You.”

In terms of exposing young folks to punk music, hardcore bands have been doing the most.

Knocked Loose is not my personal favorite but the success of their new LP is undeniable. Kublai Khan TX, Chat Pile, Speed, Jesus Piece and of course the continued success of other bands like Gel, Scowl and Soul Glo seem to suggest an attraction to the vitality of the modern hardcore scene.

Drug Church - PRUDE

I’ll never fully understand why more people aren’t streaming Drug Church the way they are these other hardcore bands, but this is my favorite hardcore release of the year for sure. Maybe it’s because they’re a bit less energetic overall compared to stuff like Knocked Loose.

Patrick Kindlon’s lyricism makes up a bulk of the band's appeal but they know how to write a sick riff like on “Myopic”, “Demolition Man” and “The Bitters.” But many of the standout moments are the lyrical snippets of storytelling like “Mad Care,” “Hey Listen” and “Peer Review.”

On the less serious side, Australian band Amyl and The Sniffers kept punk light-hearted, unpretentious and true to its roots. Their snarky, smart songwriting always makes for a couple of great tracks like “U Should Not Be Doing That”, “Pigs” and “Jerkin’” but they weren’t on constant rotation for me.

In my earbuds, post-hardcore has been where it’s at this year.

Touché Amoré - Spiral In A Straight Line

I can see why folks might see Touché Amoré as a legacy band at this point.

This was their sixth studio album after nearly 15 years of being a band but the record seemed as much as a step forward as a return to center. Jeremy Bolm’s lyricism is tight as ever with clever, poetic lyricism like on “Disasters” and “Force of Habit.”

As I’ve unpacked the album more, I’ve come to love the self-imposed tragedy documented on “This Routine” and “Finalist”. It’s the journal-like confessions from this brand of emo that always gets me. It inspires me to self-examine and create while providing an example of what good journaling does for someone.

One particular track that inspires is “Subversion” where Bolm captures a moment of self-reflection through a scene of him listening to the song “Brand New Love" by Sebadoh as he’s on a landing plane. It’s like holding a mirror to a mirror. Art begets art.

New York band Show Me The Body is more traditionally thought of as hardcore but in comparison to some of the aforementioned bands, I feel they fall more into the post-hardcore category, especially with their anthological compilation EPs they released this year. CORPUS II had some of the weirdest punk tracks of the year.

On the other side of the pond, High Vis (who was also featured on Show Me The Body’s CORPUS II) also released an interesting take on post-hardcore with their LP Guided Tour exploring Britpop and EDM sensibilities as a means to interpolate parts of their working-class experience into their preferred style (hardcore).

Fontaines D.C. - Romance

Pry the biggest post-punk success story this year (continuing a recent annual trend of continuously great UK and Irish post-punk), Fontaines D.C. has fully delved into alt-rock pulling influence from Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, and Depeche Mode to write Romance.

I wasn’t a huge fan of their breakout LP, Skinty Fia but loved their 2019 (Dogrel) and 2020 (A Hero’s Death) albums, so I didn’t expect much from Romance but was pleasantly surprised by the risks and diversity of sounds they took with the record.

They experiment with haunting, almost orchestral strings all over the record and even flirt with rap flow on their single “Starburster.” My favorites though are “Here’s The Thing,” “In The Modern World,” and “Sundowner.”

---

---