Browsing Tag

Punk Rock

Vagabond gave Forever the scratched-with-coming-of-age fervour of classic pop-punk

Posted on 13 August 2026

Get drunk on pop-punk nostalgia with Vagabond’s latest single, Forever. The York-based raw melodic punk trio, formed in 2023, brought classic pop-punk teeth into a modern bite, filling the track with the kind of emotional punch that proves punk still has blood under its fingernails.

The way the chugging chords swagger angst straight into the diehard romantic anthem, as the guitars audibly prime themselves to pounce in the chorus, and the vocals embody the scratched-with-coming-of-age fervour of 00s and 90s pop-punk, gives Forever a sense of old-school authenticity that many attempt to emulate but rarely encapsulate.

Vagabond remembered the secret ingredient for voraciously visceral pop-punk: sacrificing a slice of your vulnerable soul to the studio to bring into fruition an abrasive mirror of the pain you face when you cannot face the prospect of a temporary connection. The production keeps the band’s DIY ethos intact while giving the hook enough lift to feel built for sweaty pits in Northern venues and beyond.

Vagabond’s mix of playful observation and a proper working-class panache fire up their blistering riffs, relentless bass and pounding drums enough to give them a high-energy reputation that’s impossible to ignore.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Mert Spalty’s PODUNK Brought Queens Alt-Rock to a Scuzzy, Sweat-Slick Punk Crescendo

Posted on 20 July 2026

The writing is on the basement-venue wall; Mert Spalty’s LP, PODUNK, is the kind of woozy, scuzz-laced release to get the alt scene moving to the exhilaration of posture-free punk rock again. The Queens-based independent musician has played north of 300 shows since 2022, and that live-wire through dodgy PA conditioning burns straight through the album’s beer-spilt bloodstream.

With the same devil-may-care authenticity as Pavement, the raw emotional accessibility of garage-punk heavyweights Fidlar and inklings of Modest Mouse through the campy eccentricity and existential slacker humour, PODUNK traverses the alt spectrum with unruly purpose. Recorded in a shared practice space and Spalty’s apartment, then self-produced and mixed, the record captures bar basements packed with friends, cigarettes outside and punk rock with a bossa nova flute interlude.

The alt anthems are slick with the sweat of an artist uncaging himself. It just so happens that the outpouring of his fervent candour takes the form of some of the best alt-rock and punk instincts: almost innocently childlike creativity, high-fidelity lines ignored, sanitised mainstream potential kicked aside, reality placed front and centre.

With Fletcher Gull tracking drums in a single day before flying home to Australia, and a sold-out Ridgewood release show already proving the songs’ physical pull, PODUNK feels built for rooms where people remember why guitars and gigs you don’t have to skip rent for still matter.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Soul Dive – Shell of a Man: a Brashy Rock Breakout with Slacker Rock Swagger

Posted on 18 July 2026

Fresh faces in rock are always easy to underestimate, but that only makes being gripped by the brashy, euphoric adrenaline of Shell of a Man by Soul Dive all the more exhilarating. Hailing from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the four-piece began where a lot of great rock bands do: in a garage, with loud guitars, raw vocals and a shared hunger to make music that actually makes you feel something.

So, imagine if the New York Dolls came onto the scene 20 years later and experimented with punk-riled slacker indie rock, then give that parallel sonic universe the melodic pull of 00s rock in the vein of Semisonic and The Calling, and you would end up with the infectiously authentic emotive pull and panache of Shell of a Man.

Rather than splicing together all the juiciest parts from the annals of rock, indie and punk in an attempt to create a Frankenstein’s monster of hook-rife rancour, Soul Dive organically make their music feel greater than the sum of its parts by the sheer will of their unfeigned imagination.

There is a wild current in the performance, as though you can feel the friction of Luca’s commanding vocals, Cristiano’s driving guitar, Santino’s rhythm and keys, and Rylan’s deep bass grooves pushing the track forward and rubbing against their determination to hook you into the momentum of their lyricism.

With influences spanning Pearl Jam, Green Day, The Black Keys, Radiohead, Audioslave, Metallica and Pink Floyd, Soul Dive are already naturally hungry for rooms as big as their sound.

Shell of a Man is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Riot State’s America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) Brought Denver Punk to the Frontline of American Dissent

Posted on 29 June 2026

To the sound of sirens, America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) by Riot State is incited. The Denver punk band lashes against the violence, control and oppression inflicted upon the American masses with enough force to leave scars across the stoic gaze of the Statue of Liberty.

The track is a red-hot inferno of adrenaline as the punk ethos augments rhythmically high-octane rock; it is a landslide of rolling punches, making the anthem a feeding frenzy of volition. The riffs are wired to the picket line, every vocal strike hits like a body refusing another manufactured crisis, and the basement-demo rawness only sharpens the track’s urgency and importance.

Formed in late 2025, Riot State arrive with serious pedigree across Colorado’s music scene, featuring Ariadnee Ziady on lead guitar, Troy Ten Eyck on bass and Mitchel Paulson on vocals.

For Rage Against the Machine fans searching for contemporary protest voltage, Riot State sound ready to occupy the vanguard. With serious songwriting force hammering out a monolithic sign of the times, this is a protest picket that should send splinters through society.

America, The Ghost (Basement Demo) is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Vagabond – Pretty Boy: MILF Melodrama with Pop-Punk Hooks and Rotten-Eyed Swagger

Posted on 19 June 2026

Vagabond orchestrated the ultimate MILF melodrama with Pretty Boy, a rough-around-all-the-right-edges melodic punk single that delivers one of the most honest depictions of youthful, unfulfilled lust. If you can imagine how it would have resonated if Stacey’s Mom carried the full weight of self-defacing teen testosterone, you would get a good idea of how sharp the raw contours of Pretty Boy feel, all hormonal voltage, smirking confession and bedroom-wall frustration. The York band take punk influence from both sides of the Atlantic, injecting bouncy, hook-impaled pop-punk euphoria into snarling energy that borrows a few echoes of Johnny Rotten-esque debauched angst.

Formed in 2023, Vagabond have built a name across the Northern music scene through explosive live shows, blistering riffs, relentless bass and pounding drums, balancing playful observations with emotional punch. Their DIY ethos runs through Pretty Boy with the same sweaty immediacy as the performance itself, keeping the track sharp and scrappy while leaving its rougher pleasures intact. With its collision of classic pop-punk fun, modern melodic punk edge and cheeky social theatre, Pretty Boy proves Vagabond can turn adolescent fantasy into a full-throttle anthem.

Pretty Boy is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

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, Bedouin 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 Bedouin Medicine’s ferocity into focus.

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

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Siggy Confronted Neural Control in the Sardonic Snarl of Their Post-Punk Hit, ‘Wirehead’

Posted on 15 March 2026

Take the swagger of Pavement, the kaleidoscopes of polyphonia associated with Grandaddy, the raucously raw guitars of proto-punk, and drift in the postmodernist conviction of post-punk, and you are left with something that snarls in the same vein as Siggy’s Wirehead. Through vocals that give John Lydon a run for his money and the woozy experimentalism of Magazine, Siggy prove that hooks can cut just as sharply inside eccentric hymns about what we stand to lose if humanity slips into the ether and algorithms quietly delete autonomy as they do in plastic pop. Beyond the playful synths, this harbingering hit exposits an unavoidable future where Elon Musk has full access to our synapses, and it does so without slipping into parody or preaching.

The track carries that riled-up intelligence Siggy has honed since their late 90s inception in Los Angeles. Formed around Galen Buckwalter’s vocal volatility, alongside Ryan Howes on guitar, Deborah Buckwalter on bass, and Paul Netherton on drums, the band have spent decades balancing urgency with songwriting that hits hard without switching off its brain. Wirehead, the title release from their forthcoming album, pushes further. Inspired by Buckwalter’s direct participation in a brain-computer interface study, the record threads neural-signal-derived textures through loud, hook-driven arrangements. The concept digs into agency, control, stimulation, and overload, asking what remains human in a wired world without resorting to sci-fi cosplay theatrics.

Siggy’s live reputation backs up their reputation for ferocity, favouring loud amps, tight execution, and a no-frills stage presence that prioritises intensity over gloss. With Wirehead, they amplify punk’s original spirit of risk and defiance, charging it through a future-filtered lens that feels unsettlingly close to home.

Wirehead is now available on all major streaming platforms, including SoundCloud. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Course of Ruin Step Back into the Fire: An Interview

Posted on 16 January 2026

Course of Ruin return with a record shaped by years that pushed its creator to the edge and then demanded he sing his way back. In this interview, circumstances that pulled old songs from a forgotten hard drive into the harsh light of a hospital room, where a guitar became both a distraction and a lifeline, are laid out. The artist speaks openly about writing through treatment, confronting the subjects he once avoided and reigniting a connection with the bandmates who still feel like brothers after twenty five years. The Stonington Project carries the weight of survival and unfinished business, and this conversation hints at the deeper emotional charge running through every track.

The Stonington Project feels charged with emotional voltage from the first few seconds of Beneath a Burning Sky. When you finally revisited those half-written songs from 2006, what shifted in you musically and personally that made finishing them feel non-negotiable this time?


The main thing would have to be the cancer diagnosis. I’ve been battling this since 2015 and this was the fourth time that it had come back and it came back with a vengeance. I wasn’t sure how much time I had left and since the majority of the cancer was in my lungs, I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to sing so it was important for me to get these songs finished up quickly in case things went sideways.

You’ve spoken openly about writing much of the EP while undergoing TIL therapy in the hospital. When you were stuck in that room with a guitar and a pretty terrifying prognosis, what role did sound itself play for you? Was it distraction, defiance, or something far more visceral?

At first it was more about having a distraction and something to pass the time. The first week of treatment was 6 hours a day of chemotherapy, then a week of TIL therapy and 3 weeks of monitoring, so you’re kind of stuck in bed for 5 weeks and you start to go stir crazy. You can only watch so may episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Family Guy before even that gets boring. So I asked my sister-in-law Hannah if she could bring one of my guitars with her when she brought my kids to visit. This would at least give me something to noodle around on during the infusions.

I quickly started to realize that I needed an outlet to process what I was going through. It seemed like every time the doctor entered the room, it was to let us know that the situation was getting worse and they were finding more cancer with every scan. Because of that I started to go into a pretty deep depression at the time and for months afterward so this was sort of my “therapy” so to speak. It gave me something different to focus on and channel that energy into something that had been laying dormant for the past 17 years.

How did you navigate writing the lyrics on death, fear and letting go that you once avoided, especially when they came from such a vulnerable and physically brutal chapter of your life?

In the past, lyrics were always just thrown together at the last minute and not really given the focus and attention that they should have. It was more about the riffs and guitar solos, so that was something that I really wanted to avoid this time around.

The lyrics for these songs were definitely a lot more vulnerable. Throughout the years I’ve been pretty selective about who I would share information with on what I had been going through. My wife Jenni and I didn’t want to constantly be viewed with pity, so we didn’t want to make it too public.

The lyrics/vocals for this record really had me putting myself and my story “out there” so to speak and because of that, I was a little nervous about how they were going to be received. Some of the darker songs were actually pretty difficult to get through during the recording process. It was really hard to not get emotional when tracking them and I would have to stop, take a break and collect myself so I could get through the session and have a take that I was happy with. I think because of that, the raw emotion really came through.

After a twenty-five-year hiatus, stepping into a studio again must have been surreal. Did it feel like slipping back into old skin or more like meeting a new version of Course of Ruin that had been hibernating in the background all this time?

It kind of just clicked. I had been a producer and engineer for years after the band stopped playing so being in a studio was just kind of second nature for me. The great thing this time around is that the studio is in my guest bedroom (The Guest Room of Doom). I used to own a studio just outside of Las Vegas, NV and that’s where the drums were tracked back in 2006. Those tracks had just been sitting on a hard drive in a cardboard box down in my basement along with some scratch guitar tracks for the past 17 years.

I recently produced and engineered a record for my friends son’s band Corvus last year before I went into the hospital and because of that, I had converted the guest bedroom of my house into a control room. So everything just kind of fell into place for me to finally finish up this project.

Since this has been a passion project for me for so long, it was a little different doing everything by myself. Writing, performing, engineering, mixing/mastering. I had to wear a lot of hats but I think it was what was needed to pull me out of this downward spiral that I was in. It left very little room in my head to dwell on the uncertainty of my situation because I was so consumed with trying to get this project finished.

That’s the exciting part about everybody getting back involved and the ability to start collaborating and being able to share the load of the writing process. You don’t realize how difficult it is to write/perform everything on your own until you’re in the thick of it. Even though these songs were my own brainchild, I did still get help from the guys by sending them roughs and getting feedback. Chris even helped me come up with the vocal melody for the verses of “Landslides” since I was hitting a bit of a writers block and I think that’s really what stoked the fire in all of us to start writing again. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you miss doing something until you experience a small piece of it and then that tiny morsel creates a full blown hunger to get back at it.

The EP is absolutely possessed with purpose. How did it feel to hear the finished version? 

Honestly, it felt great. I think this is the first project that I have been completely happy with. I’m typically pretty hard on myself and I’ll always find things that I wished I had done better. I’ve always hated the sound of my own voice but with this project I’m able to sit back, listen and say to myself, “ I guess it’s not THAT bad”.

Back in the late-90s you were sharing stages with acts who shaped entire pockets of punk history. How did those early years of chaotic Orange County nights and post-hardcore sweatboxes inform the energy you tapped into for this EP?

I think that the late-90s energy will always be a part of everything that we write. The Orange County scene is what shaped us and continues to shape us. When we weren’t playing shows, we were at shows supporting our friends or attending shows of bands that we looked up to/were fans of. Even with this record being a bit slower and more emotive, you’ll still hear references of our Orange County Punk early influences.

You’ve described the band’s return as unfinished business rather than nostalgia. What exactly feels unfinished to you, and how does that hunger shape the material you are already writing beyond The Stonington Project?

I think what we mean by that is that we still have more to give. Even since we stopped playing, Jacob, Dave and Chris are still my closest friends (more like brothers) and we kept in touch and talk all of the time. We’ve had conversations about looking back at what we did and how when you are young, you really take for granted the opportunities that you had and don’t take the time to step back and just really let it sink in that you are jamming, touring, and having fun with your 3 best friends.

The Stonington Project was a unique record because it was more about me getting to scratch my creative itch and to help me cope with everything that is/was going on. The new material that we are working on is kind of going back to our OC Punk roots but still having a more mature spin on it since we’re not 18 years old anymore. I think in the past 25 years, we’re learned more of what to do and more importantly what NOT to do in the song writing process. I’m really excited to see where the new material is headed.

You’ve been handed a second chance at life and, in a lot of ways, a second chance at the band. How does that renewed sense of urgency and gratitude filter into the way you approach rehearsals, writing sessions and even band relationships now?

It really sparked a fire in all of us to start writing and creating music again. The writing sessions are interesting since we all live in different parts of the country. Dave and Jacob are in the Dallas, TX area, Chis is still in Orange County, CA and I’m in Stonington, CT so we’ve been sending riffs back and forth to start writing some new material together. When you’re younger, you really try to write songs that sound like the bands that you love so for me it was all about trying to sound like Strung Out, Lagwagon, Good Riddance, etc. Now it’s just about writing songs that feel good to me and then collaborating with the other guys to refine them and get a unique finished product.

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Stream Course of Ruin’s latest release on Spotify. 

Interview

Dinosaur Death Pose Pulled Punk into the Apocalypse with ‘Dancing at the End of the World’

Posted on 1 June 2025

With Dancing at the End of the World, Dinosaur Death Pose transposed the threat of societal oblivion into a punchy alt-rock riot that affirms exactly why we languish in existential terror. The debut single from their LP No Sign of Life doesn’t flinch from the chaos; it throws a smoke bomb into the void and soundtracks the aftermath with high-octane hooks and venomous euphoria.

Formed in Dundee by John Edwards, Daryl Robertson, Connor Reilly, and Simon Cruickshank, Dinosaur Death Pose channel a love for distortion, disillusionment, and screamable choruses into every abrasion of sound. Their command of tension is surgical, their catharsis unfiltered. The razor-edged punk energy and emotionally wrought riffcraft are built to leave marks.

With high-voltage surges shredding through the standout single as a courtesy of the deliciously overdriven guitars and the drunk n roll meets 00s rock percussion only adding more volition, paired with vocals that pull you into their consoling orbit to shred away the ennui, Dancing at the End of the World achieved the impossible. It became the definitive definition of punk.

For fans of Rancid, Against Me! and Rocket from the Crypt, the connection will be instant.

Dancing at the End of the World is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Lürxx Charged Through the Sonic Plains of Activist Glam Punk with ‘Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse)’

Posted on 28 May 2025

With riffs hotter than the climate we keep fuelling and a vocal presence as raw as the wind across the open plains, the Lürxx pushed their Nature Warrior Glam Punk manifesto into unrestrained territory with Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse). The only thing more visceral than their sonic rebellion is the reverence they pay to their subject: the untameable spirit of wild horses, symbolised through the true story of Kokopelli.

The single isn’t a hippy fantasy dressed up as rock. It’s a thunderous salute to the real wild and free. A demand to see beyond the self and bring the vast scope of nature into your field of vision. A call to revolution, not through destruction but by walking away from it. No borrowed defiance here. The Lürxx have written it in their blood.

With glam rock attitude, punk’s unrepentant energy and a flair for the experimental, the twin force of Xavi and Sabú left no corner of their ethos unexplored. Whether they’re shredding with recorder solos or channelling radical optimism through eco-driven lyricism, the duo write with the kind of urgency that’s only born of conviction. It’s no wonder their protest-charged resurrection of the band in 2020 lit the fuse.

The track’s apex comes when they lace rock vocals with the whinnies of a mustang. It’s unapologetically weird. And it works. Wildness isn’t a costume for the Lürxx. It’s the whole truth.

Mustang (The Nature of the Wild Horse) is now available to stream on all major platforms. For the full experience, watch the official music video on YouTube. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast.