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Punk

WHEN I’M GONE Is Maiden Lane’s Fuzz-Pedal Funeral for Polished Punk

Posted on 8 June 2026

Someone may want to check on Maiden Lane’s fuzz and overdrive pedals after the Ontario solo punk rock project recorded WHEN I’M GONE, one of the seminal singles taken from their third LP, BOUDIN MEDICINE. The grungy skate-punk aesthetics of Fidlar scathe their way into the feverish, scuzzy electricity of this short but serrated release, making the track feel like a gig poster plastered basement wall suddenly learned how to bite.

Hit play, and the artificial gloss of modernity is instantly scoured away as Maiden Lane rolls with all the rabid punches, harking back to the nostalgia of no-wave’s first crash to the shore of safe punk. Yousif Abusitta, the artist and producer behind the project, lets the guitar-driven aggression come through with total conviction, throwing groovy bass lines, melodic hooks, and raw-throated conviction into a sound built for rooms where sweat collects on the ceiling.

Since forming Maiden Lane in 2022 with The Black Cat Project, Abusitta has kept expanding the project’s political bite and garage-punk volition through releases including Pay The Man Before His Sweat Dries, Marijuana, I Pray To This Guitar, Tunnel (Dig Until I Die), and Lap Dog. WHEN I’M GONE carries that same refusal to sanitise the moment, bringing BOUDIN MEDICINE’s ferocity into focus.

WHEN I’M GONE is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Victories Threw Pop Punk Back to Its Scarred Y2K Glory Days with ‘C U L8R (Alligator)’

Posted on 23 May 2026

Dropped during Mental Health Month, C U L8R (Alligator) by Victories throws pop-punk fans right back to the Y2K glory days of the genre, when Fall Out Boy and Simple Plan reigned supreme with their ability to leave your heart in your throat by wearing their scarred heartstrings on their guitar hooks.

It is an absolute monolith of an anthem, amping itself up with the bitter, biting emotion that refuses to remain an undercurrent. It sparks right through the synapses of the track, reaching the epitome of candid urgency while handling depression with more nuance than you’ll find in any token Instagram post. Written from inside the impossible cycle of feeling like a burden while feeling burdened by everyone else, C U L8R (Alligator) turns mental collapse into a melodic flare fired through the dark.

You might assume a world apart in production quality and technical talent between MCR’s I’m Not Okay and a 2026 hit from a breakthrough band in Montreal, but Victories will show you exactly how wrong you are. Produced by Kyle Marchant at Room 21 Studios, the single channels the live energy of A Day to Remember, the melodic clarity of New Found Glory, and the emotional directness of Neck Deep, all filtered through the flames of Victories’ impassioned vindication when tackling mental health matters.

C U L8R (Alligator) is now available to stream on all major platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Finley Clark delivered Riot Grrrl 2.0 with the siren-esque industrial pop earworm, Berlin Baby

Posted on 29 April 2026

Finley Clark dropped the ultimate siren alt-rock anthem with her latest hypersonically hooked hit, Berlin Baby. Delivering a sound salacious enough to be more in line with the wares of an underground sex shop than a record store, Clark reached the epitome of raunchy filth with her electrifyingly infectious standout single that could easily replace Nine Inch Nails’ Closer on the dancefloor of goth clubs as the ultimate single to writhe to.

By fusing the danceability of dark electro pop with the attitude and angst of alt-rock, the trailblazing artist used the kinetic power of the release to deliver a message that Kathleen Hanna would undoubtedly approve of. Berlin Baby stomps forward on aggressive glam-industrial guitars, heavy electronic bass, icy verses, and theatrical choruses, turning female rage, ambition, and power into high fashion provocation.

There are traces of Marilyn Manson’s Mobscene in the dirty theatricality, Amy Lee in the haunted vocal force, and Panic! At The Disco in the grandiose drama, while Finley Clark keeps the release sharpened with her own anti-patriarchal venom.

Raised in a German-speaking environment and later studying German literature, Clark threaded late-60s counterculture, feminist history, and Berlin iconography into the DNA of the single. With producer Mark Haugegaard Nielsen, she built a neon-lit cathedral of the bold sonic world of her upcoming album, Illumination, through Berlin Baby.

Berlin Baby is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Lauren Ash- F.A.F.O: Sticky-Sweet Augmented Antagonism Meets the Adrenalized Vindication of Y2K Pop-Punk

Posted on 24 April 2026
Lauren Ash

Lauren Ash’s stripes as a pop punk icon went up in a blaze of glory in her latest single, F.A.F.O, which has already become a fan favourite during her recent tours due to the sticky-sweet augmented antagonism driving every second of it. Lauren Ash, widely known on screen for her major role in the series Superstore before tearing into music with full force, has steadily built a second identity around her sonic ferocity. After her debut album Call Me When You Get This, headline shows across Canada and sold-out dates in Glasgow, Manchester and London, F.A.F.O lands with the confidence of an artist who knows exactly how to weaponise a hook.

It delivers the bite of 90s riot grrrl with the punchy, high-octane rush of Y2K pop punk, while carrying the kind of chant-ready adrenaline that makes total sense of its live reputation. She’s the girl all the bad guys want, to throw a Bowling for Soup reference into the mix, as she incites a riot against men who think they can breeze through life without ever paying for the consequences of their actions, expecting women to suffer whatever self-destructive absurdity without protest. Vindication runs thick in the veins of this radio and anthem-ready earworm. It absolutely slaps.

F.A.F.O is now available on all major streaming platforms. Find your preferred way to listen on the artist’s official website.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

WeAreTheStation’s post-punk transmission, ‘Hide’ rose from the pessimist panache of The Fall

Posted on 15 April 2026

Attempts at indie post-punk panache most often end up as posturing pastiche, but WeAreTheStation let nostalgia echo through the shockwaves of their own distinction in Hide, from the debut LP, Looking for a Better World. The way the slew of jangly guitars in the intro throws you straight into the atmosphere and energy of the track with enough conviction to give you whiplash is a testament to WeAreTheStation’s command of aesthetics from the very first seconds.

From there, the cynical air of post-punk snarls its way through the riotous riptide of influences. There are elements of Half Man Half Biscuit nestled alongside echoes of the experimentalism of Magazine, while hints of The Fall and Yard Act sharpen the deadpan angle of the delivery. Still, WeAreTheStation are on cruise control through them all, ensnaring through their devil-may-care decadence rather than getting trapped in imitation.

Recorded locally at Bunkhouse Studios in Bulwell, Looking for a Better World already points to a band with a strong sense of place, stylistically and geographically; they know their roots, and they know how to harness melodic force, sharp attitude and live-wire urgency into them.

Hide is now available on all major streaming platforms via this link. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

FERAL CAROL spiked ‘APPLE PIE!’ with Slacker Cynicism and Hip-Pop Nostalgia

Posted on 14 April 2026

FERAL CAROL nailed slacker hip-pop 90s nostalgia in their seminal single, APPLE PIE!. Hailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and working with the kind of self-made scruff that suits them down to the ground, the band recorded, mixed and mastered their debut LP SUPER DUPER! themselves in a camper in Yarmouth, which tells you plenty about their relationship with polish, decorum and doing things the sensible way.

Their laidback, lo-fi aesthetic soaks cynicism into the middle ground between Pavement, Beck and Bloodhound Gang, though that effortless sense of indifference is tempered by FERAL CAROL’s fearlessly ironic eccentric instrumentation. Not even the kazoo was out of bounds for the ingredients of APPLE PIE!, and fair play, that lawlessness pays off.

The whole LP, which dropped on 4 April, is escapism via absurdism, an affirmation that your grievances with reality are valid, but indulging in sardonic sanctuaries of sound can be the ultimate outlet for your rage. By the usual standings of reckonings, it’s ridiculous, but it’s exactly what times like these call for. APPLE PIE! lands as the perfect gateway into that world, all scuffed-up charm, deadpan bite and brilliantly unserious seriousness.

APPLE PIE! is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Shape or Form’s Debut Single, ‘Don’t Turn Away’ Hung Lynchian Melodies, Scuzzy Pop-Punk Antagonism and Alt-90s Nostalgia in the Gallery of Their Ingenuity 

Posted on 1 April 2026

‘Don’t Turn Away’ may ease you in with woozy function-band melodic 80s nostalgia, the kind you’d expect to see people swaying and swooning to in a David Lynch film, but the debut single from Williamsport-based powerhouse Shape or Form, which keeps its tuning geared towards the past to drench the present in the kind of nostalgia that instantly makes your angsty soul feel right at home, dials up the pop-punk antagonism to the scuzziest degree, delivering a grungy homage to the alt-90s.

If Teenage Fanclub, Weezer and other bands in that deliciously visceral vein constitute your playlist staples, this lo-fi slacker jam is essential listening. There’s definitive talent to the way Shape or Form simmers tension into the release; the melodic ease of the opening gives way to a rougher, fuzz-frayed charge without losing its hooky core. That push and pull gives the track its staying power, landing somewhere between basement-show scruffiness and cinema-lit longing.

Formed in late 2023 in North Central Pennsylvania, the four-piece came together fast, driven by shared chemistry and a love of songs that carry familiar hooks without sounding stale. With John on drums, Micah on bass, Patrick on lead guitar, and Vaughn steering rhythm guitar and vocals, the band already sound locked in.

Don’t Turn Away is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Paul Jannicola Rubs Salt into the Wound of Tyranny with the Folk Fury of ‘Sorrow in My Soul’

Posted on 1 April 2026

If a folk artist can’t conjure a visceral atmosphere with little more than their vocal cords and acoustic strings, they’re not worth their salt, and Paul Jannicola brought enough brine to sting wounds wide open on Sorrow in My Soul.

In his latest release, the NYC-born, Virginia-based singer-songwriter draws listeners into the harrow of a haunting vignette inspired by the fatal shootings at the hands of ICE in Minneapolis. There’s no ornamental cushioning or softening of the blow, only a direct, intravenous line into grief, fury, and the sickening familiarity of public trauma. Jannicola, whose live reputation has carried him from the National Mall to wider recognition, knows exactly how to make a song feel like testimony.

“Four Dead in 1970 How far we haven’t come Blood flowing in the streets of Minneapolis And they’re hoping that we all just go numb” is Jannicola’s way of iterating that we don’t have to fear damnation, we’re already here, walking through the lies of progress, watching history repeat and tyranny ultimately leaving us unfazed because we’re desensitised by the horror on our streets and in our soul.

The official video, released on YouTube earlier this year, for a submission into the NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2026, only sharpens the force of the track. If it misses wider acclaim, we’ve got another reason to riot. The way it fires you up with vindication to spit out the ennui and feed your anger is unmatched by anything we have heard recently.

Sorrow in My Soul is now available on all major streaming platforms. Catch the official music video on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

Keith Z’s pop-punk hooks tore into the contradictions of the ‘friendzone’ with ‘Just Friends’

Posted on 22 March 2026

Fans of All-American Rejects, All Time Low, and New Found Glory will find a new pop-punk obsession in the infectiously sticky-sweet yet scorn-laced latest release from Keith Z, Just Friends. The Australian artist, who cut his teeth performing covers before stepping into his own catalogue, carried his livewire energy straight into the core of the track, giving it the kind of immediacy that feels designed for sweat-soaked alt club dancefloors.

Sonically, there’s no arguing with the production. Keith Z’s songwriting remains razor-sharp as ever as he exhibits a natural ease with turning vocal refrains into efficacious rallying cries, while the instrumentals stay pinned at a fever pitch throughout. The hooks land fast and linger longer than expected, pulling listeners straight into the emotional churn of the track without giving them much room to breathe.

Lyrically, Just Friends leans into more provocative territory. The narrative will inevitably rub a few listeners the wrong way, particularly those who bristle at the conversation around the friendzone. Yet that tension is exactly where the track finds its bite. In a perfect world, men and women would create toxicity-free friendships, but a quick glance at reality makes it clear that idealism is naivety in a facade, and the dynamics of the friendzone are never as black and white as some would like to believe.

Someone had to address it, and no one could have said it better. Keith Z has the cheeky sardonic charm that would allow him to get away with murder.

Just Friends is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Punk-Pinched Indie Meets Espionage Surf Rock Aesthetics in NikNeuro Music’s ‘Underneath the Skin’

Posted on 21 March 2026

If a new James Bond film ever calls for a punk-pinched indie psych surf rock single, NikNeuro Music’s Underneath the Skin is there for the taking, although when the chorus hits, it could lead to the world’s first cinema mosh pit. The track wastes no time locking into its espionage aesthetic, setting the tone with an intro that instantly places you in a spy-surf fever dream.

After that opening, NikNeuro Music leans fully into anthemically, organically hook-rich vocals, giving the track its riotous air. The delivery surges with a melodic urgency that feeds directly into the rhythmic backbone. The rhythm section rolls listeners straight into exhilaration. When the momentum peaks in the choruses, tightening the grip of the perennial punk earworm

Imagine Chris Cornell fronting My Chemical Romance as they lend their razor-sharp songwriting to espionage cinema aesthetics, while borrowing a few of the shadows from The Rasmus, and you’ll get a sense of what NikNeuro Music delivered with Underneath the Skin. The lyricism stays cerebral throughout, threading themes of identity, empathy, and the hidden tensions within people, while the sonics remain unapologetically frenetic.

That push and pull between thoughtfulness and sheer sonic force gives the track its bite. If you’re often fraught with curiosity and confusion while trying to make sense of the rest of the human race, the resonance within this hit will hit hard.

Underneath the Skin is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast