Punk

New EP: Square One & Turn Of Phrase || Pale Skies

Latest 7" released by Scheme and Sunday Drive Records is an essential hardcore purchase

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Square One (New York) and Turn of Phrase (London) both released demos a while back and now team up for a split 7″ that hardcore kids of all ages all over the globe should be all over. Both bands contribute two songs, and while they’re not reinventing the genre (and why should they?!), these songs are certified fresh in their deployment of breakneck tempos, gut-punch breakdowns, throbbing basslines, and vocals that mean every word.

Square One and Turn of Phrase may not sound alike, but complement each other smoothly. The common thread? Both bands understand that hardcore can be passionate, aggressive, and melodic all at once. This is the kind of single where you place the 7″ on your turntable and quickly dub one band as your favorite new hardcore find, only to repeat that statement when you flip over the single. And repeat!

7″ available through Scheme and Sunday Drive Records.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Scheme || Sunday Drive

New album: Monda || Waiting For Your Mistake

Mike Maietta's basement pop empire strikes again

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Monda is what happens in Mike Maietta’s New Jersey basement, but doesn’t stay there. For the past seven years or so, he’s been writing and recording catchy lo-fi tunes, sometimes solo, sometimes with the support of friends. Monda’s latest is titled Waiting For Your Mistake and flies through 16 songs in 25 minutes. If anything, it shows a typical Monda song respects your attention span, in and out before your brain even has time to wander.

At times, Monda sounds like a more groovy and danceable version of Terry Malts, especially in the first half. The second half offers more punk-leaning basement pop. Overall this is a varied record, and DJs have plenty to pick from for their next radio show or Mixcloud playlist.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: Civic Mimic || Civic Mimic

Jeff Hersch's lockdown project returns as a full band punch after five year hiatus.

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Jeff Hersch (Glazer) started releasing music as Civic Mimic in the early months of the COVID pandemic, dropping about 25 songs across four releases between May 2020 and April 2021. After that… crickets.

Pandemic over, band over would have been a fair assumption, but Civic Mimic is back with a self-titled three-song EP that feels like a reset. This time, Civic Mimic go full band. No social distancing, just bodies pressed in, volume cranked, and sweat flying all over each other. The songs are that hot.

I have said it before, but fans of Tenement should really be paying attention. Civic Mimic tap into that same mix of scrappy hooks and blown-out charm, playing it with enough swagger to keep things from ever feeling too clean.

If the band’s social media manager is to be believed, there is more on the way, which is for the better, as this sounds too good for a one-off return.

Limited tape run available at their live shows.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Gladie || No Need To Be Lonely

The message of the album title lands, loud and literal

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With Jeff Rosenstock behind the boards, Philadelphia-based indie rock/pop punk outfit Gladie snap into the red without ditching the introspection that’s defined singer Augusta Koch’s post-Cayetana evolution. The twelve songs on new long-player No Need To Be Lonely are not only characterized by her awesome vocals, but also by big guitars and bigger feelings, delivered with zero gloss.

The words here matter, like the ones about showing up for yourself and your people, even when you’re barely holding it together: “Should have listened more and talked less / Every dumb cliche is true / Wish we could ignore this / Sit on your couch and talk shit like we used to” (from Brace Yourself). The alternation of messy and sensitive really hits, with a strangely comforting aftertaste.



No Need To Be Lonely—produced by Jeff Rosenstock—is out now digitally and on vinyl LP through Get Better Records. Featuring Augusta Koch (guitar, vocals), Matt Schimelfenig (guitar, keyboard, piano, vocals), Evan Demianczyk (bass), Miles Ziskind (drums, percussion), and Liz Parsons (backing vocals), with Jeff Rosenstock (organ, mellotron, backing vocals) and Anthony Hoey (guitar) on select tracks.

Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Get Better

New EP: United Stare || Voice of Change

The 7" that sounds exactly as good as its cover art looks

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When I stumbled on the artwork for the new United Stare 7″ (a dark, brooding silhouette of Stonehenge backlit by a burst of yellow-green sunlight, overlaid with bold military stencil lettering in a style that evokes anarcho-punk’s DIY aesthetic), it caught my attention. It looked like some classic ’80s hardcore punk single. Then I clicked play and was enthralled by its title track. The song evokes Chubby and the Gang in how it takes elements of street punk, hardcore, and rock ‘n’ roll and smashes them together. Then the second song, Burning the City, kicks in, and it sounds like a hardcore band experimenting with rock and power pop. Driving guitar rhythm, catchy melodies (the band cites Joe Walsh), and even some ooohoohoo’s that contrast nicely with the raw and honest vocals.

These two songs alone would make for a fine single. There’s more though. Moon Landing II is a 7-minute instrumental. If the first two songs were built on urgency, this one is built on repetition and tension with mesmerizing results. Kill Enemy Records pressed 500 copies, but still, this sounds like something you don’t want to sit on for too long.


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New EP: The Caries Company || Episodio Especial

Spanish chaos merchants deliver the goods

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The mutant punk genre (or egg punk, if you’re into labeling things) is absolutely packed right now. New bands are popping up daily, old favorites are striking fast and often, and you could easily fill an entire blog just tracking this specific strain of breakneck drum machines, squiggly synths, and controlled chaos. We’re not that site. So when an egg punk band makes the rounds here, it means they’re doing something special.

The Caries Company is exactly that. They’ve got all the familiar elements (synthetic drums, frantic synths, general weirdness), but strip those off and they’d still stand firmly as a great punk band. Listen to the Dulce Charco, for example. That’s just a great punk track, full stop. Add in chaotic bursts like P.T.Z.T., which sounds as fun as it is funny (whoo hoo!), and you’ve got a band that knows exactly what they’re doing. Let these Spaniards run amok in your recording studio. We all benefit.

Out now on 7″ (Prison Records) and tape (Idiotape).


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Idiotape

New album: Sparrowhawk || Sunflowers in the Moonlight

Further prove rock 'n' roll's renaissance is real

By / / Garage Rock, Glam Rock, Power Pop, Punk / Leave a Comment

My AOTY longlist is still too short for my liking, but here’s a record that earned its spot after one spin. It is the second LP from Sparrowhawk, a Minneapolis outfit stacked with members from Private Interests, Mystery Date, Southside Desire, and Radio On. One glance at their name and art direction tells you everything: this band worships at the altar of ROCK in capital letters, and they’re not apologizing for it. Sparrowhawk sound like what would happen if a gang of Minneapolis basement punks crashed a ’70s rock festival, seized the main stage, and won over every confused rocker in the crowd before security could throw them out.

I dug their 2023 debut, but Sunflowers in the Moonlight is on another level entirely. I couldn’t stop spinning this thing over the weekend. It’s a Bermuda Triangle of Thin Lizzy, The Replacements, and The Hold Steady, and getting lost in it is the whole damn point.

I’ve said this in recent write-ups about Josephine Network and Daniel Romano’s Outfit, but we’re living through a legit rock ‘n’ roll renaissance right now. And while I’ll always love my punk loud and angry, there’s something extra joyful about uncomplicated (but flawlessly executed) rock songs in our bleak, polarized world. Fingerlicking, shrieking dual guitar riffs and anthemic choruses built for escape? Yeah, I’ll take that!

At almost 50 minutes, Sunflowers in the Moonlight fills every groove on the LP and doesn’t waste a second. By the time you reach the stunning 11-minute closer The Ranch Trilogy, you’ll be ready to hand Sparrowhawk all your money. And if the music somehow isn’t enough, that apocalyptic album art (glowing planet, sunflower field, lonely farmhouse under cosmic skies) belongs on a 12-inch square, not a phone screen. This is what vinyl was made for.

Buy the LP at Piñata Records.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Bad//Dreems || Ultra Dundee

The long goodbye sounds strangely triumphant

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We have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the latter, as I found this message in my mailbox: “For now, we are putting Bad//Dreems on hold, to let our precious journey percolate and to let all of us have a chance to give time to our families, jobs and other projects. The upcoming tour will be our last shows for an indefinite period.” It’s making their latest (fifth) studio album Ultra Dundee feel like both a victory lap and a slow fade into the pub lights. The good news? It’s a belter.

Written and recorded on home turf, the successor to 2023’s Hoo Ha! LP doubles down on the band’s dusty Australiana mythology, half-character study, half-heatstroke hallucination. The eleven new songs—gravely garage rock meets post-punk with the emphasis on punk—are somewhat more subdued than what we are used to, but they hit just as hard. There’s grit in every line, but also a strange tenderness, like they’re documenting ghosts before they disappear. Sonically, it’s loose but purposeful, sharpened and sprawling, intense yet infectious.

If this is the end, Bad//Dreems have chosen a fitting and clever final statement. There’s a good chance you’ll see this one in a prominent spot when we look back at the best of 2026 in December, but we also hope for a restart of the band in due course.



Ultra Dundee—produced by Dan Luscombe—is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP, through Gutto Records.

Add to wantlist: Bad//Dreems || Bandcamp || Discogs

New album: Sick Shooters || Super Sonic Rock Saga

A spectacular(ly fun) debut from the Netherlands' next breakout band

By / / Garage Rock, Punk / 1 Comment

Ready to break the bank for the next breakout band from the Netherlands? Meet Sick Shooters, four dudes from Utrecht (members of bands like No Brains, Spurn, and Ultragoblin) who love their ’70s power pop (Nerves!) as much as their ’90s garage punk (New Bomb Turks! Reatards! Oblivians!), yet probably sound more like a classic late ’70s pop punk band (Buzzcocks! Damned! Undertones!).

Are you excited yet?

Well, these songs are so contagious, their hooks so evident, that you easily miss they don’t even have a bass player. I have no idea why. Perhaps they read about the problems with a certain bass player from a certain influential early punk band? But honestly, does it matter when your songs bring this level of excitement? I mean, look at the video for Evacuation. Would adding a bass player really make that a better video?

It’s one thing to start a throwback punk band, but I’m pretty blown away by how Sick Shooters pull it off. Sick Shooters took the blueprint from 1977, the swagger and chaos of 1997, and built something that could’ve torn up clubs in either decade.

And will torn up whatever stage they will be rockin’ in 2026.

Believe the hype, buy the LP through Wap Shoo Wap Records, and let the good times roll!


Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

New album: Friends of Cesar Romero || Songs The Siren Sing

J Waylon walks away after giving us everything

By / / Garage Rock, Power Pop, Punk / Leave a Comment

Imagine him.

Imagine him embarking on a musical project in 2011.
Calls it the Doomed Babe Series.
Writing songs about love gone wrong, love destined to fail, love lost, and love never moving beyond the platonic stage.
Songs about yearning, jealousy, heartbreak, obsession, regret, and all the messy, beautiful wreckage that comes with wanting someone you can’t have.

Imagine him thinking this would be a solid endeavor for ten releases or so.
Write catchy rock ‘n’ roll songs to deal with some personal demons.
Get it out of his system.

Imagine him finishing the tenth installment and discovering his well of inspiration is far from drying out.
Imagine him always writing and recording songs, everywhere he went.
In his car.
Parents’ house.
Girlfriends’ houses.

Imagine it accumulating.
Hundreds of songs.
Thousands of gutpunchy, witty, dumb, and smart words on the human experience.
Self-releasing these songs on his own dime.
The occasional label release.

Imagine music bloggers thinking: didn’t he just release something last week?
Imagine music bloggers writing about the release anyway, because how could they not?

Imagine just 10% of these songs being hits.
But what if the hit rate is much, much higher?
It is.
Much higher.
Much, much.
There are so many songs.
Finding a bad one is hard.
Finding a new favorite is easy.

See the man now, 15 years later.
Announcing he is done.
Had a rough couple of years.
Body battered and beaten.
Mind ready to quit rock ‘n’ roll.

50 is a good number to wrap it up.
Now that his decision is final, he wants to get it over with.
Releases #48 on February 6th.
Releases #49 on March 6th.
Releases #50 on March 19th.

The last one features some of his best songs yet.
Quit while the going is still good.
Proud, he is.
He should be.

He is J Waylon.
Criminally underrated writer of catchy garage power pop punk songs.
Man of a thousand broken hearts.
Generous human being who gave us 50 killer releases and asked for nothing in return.

The Doomed Babe Series 2011-2026.

Don’t cry because it’s over.
Be grateful it happened.

To the man about to quit rock ‘n’ roll:
We salute you.



Add to wantlist: Bandcamp

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