Reunion albums rarely deliver. 20 years later though, and The Format have managed to deliver something fresh, and in a completely direction from their predecessor. They've traded in their power-pop sound for something more 90s Alt-Rock and Grunge influenced but undeniably The Format with all the hooks you hope to find on a Format record. 

Joyce Manor have found a spot and settled over the course of their career. You know more or less what to expect. 2 minute bangers you find yourself shouting in the car on your morning commutes. I Used to Go to This Bar doesn't waste time with any padding. Arguably their catchiest album in years with sweet melodies left and right. From their Smiths reminiscent track, "All My Friends are So Depressed" to their fast paced punk rager "The Opossum."

Olivia Rodrigo is one of the few young artists you can hear growing exponentially as a songwriter with each new album. After two albums with strong pop-punk influences, on You Look Pretty Sad For a Girl So In Love, she looks to 80s New Wave for inspiration. The Cure influence is heard all over the album. "The Cure" is a song on the album. The Cure is literally ON the album due to Robert Smith lending his voice for a track. 

I'm sorry but Ratboys were never on my radar for over the past decade they've been around. Through word of mouth, this album made its way to my speakers. Singin' to an Empty Chair takes you on a journey through with peaks and valleys of American, Indie-Rock, and Power-Pop with some tracks topping 5 and even 8 minutes, but rarely any lulls. 

I don't think Converge are capable of not delivering a solid record. This year they've delivered 2. Hum of Hurt just happens to come out ahead for me. It's a bit more sludgy oddly enough darker than Love is Not Enough's fast riff-laden tracks. You find Bannon's more heart wrenching singing as opposed to his aggressive shrieks that tend to draw me in more. Each album is both sides of the same coin, I just happen to find Hum of Hurt a more interesting listen. 

Just when you think a legendary band has run out of ways to surprise you, they rip up their own script, showering you with fragments of former architecture. Fresh off the spurred heels of last year's studio album, Horror, the iconoclastic Leeds post-punk legends are back to completely tear down riffs and rebuild those exact tracks through a haze of echo, paranoia, and heavy low-end positive PMA vibrations.

House Of All’s Inklings is a proper, punch-up post-punk juggernaut that completely outruns the screaming shadow of The Fall with zero reliance on cheap nostalgia or novelty. Fueled by a vicious double-drum ambush, Steve Hanley's filthy and furious basslines, and Martin Bramah acting like a brilliant, Absinthe-and-prose-drunk madman, it proves this late-career inheritance is the real devil’s deal.

Nick Saloman has been grinding away in the music world for 58 years.

It puts things into perspective—when he sings about the music industry giving him a shiny jewel-encrusted crown and snatching it right back, he’s drawing a long haul on nearly six decades of firsthand experience dealing with the business.

Horrorful Heights. A 20-track double-album behemoth.Essential listening for all neophytes tripping into Saloman’s void..

This album was such a pleasant surprise at the start of the year. After eight years of silence I thought they had disbanded. Sometimes it is good to be wrong, right? Youth Avoiders pick up right where they left 8 years ago and play that sweet fast yet very melodic style of hardcore punk. What sets them apart is their guitar tone, that is not as thick and distorted as you might expect from the style and their superb songwriting. Ten tracks, just over twenty minutes, loads of excellent riffs and a perfect production, this is a recipe for goosebumps. This is on regular rotation and deserves to be on the top of this list.

Prisonnier Du Temps is the solo project of Jacky Cadiou who has already made waves with other bands he is involved in. Syndrome 81 may be the best known of the bunch, but you might also have heard of Fine Equipe or Grisaille just to name a couple. This is the second album under the Prisonnier Du Temps moniker. Where the debut (Comme Un Lion) was more straightforward OI! this new album tries out a couple of new things, creating new possibilities for OI! It is wild, anthemic and very melodic. An incredible album and a huge step forward compared to (the already good) debut. I hope to see other bands following their lead and be just a little bit more adventurous.

Third Ego strikes again. The title of the record, More Ego, says it all. If you like their debut, you'll like this one as well, as you get a second serving. I like that they kept things the same: great production, great songwriting, great artwork, great performances allround. What do they do? Lazily I'll quote what I wrote in my column about their debut as it also applies to this record: Third Ego must have decided it was time to upgrade the sound of The Wipers to this century, hell, to this decade. And they more than succeeded. This record is brilliant in its catchy songwriting. This is not an overly aggressive record, this is a mature band that knows their worth and delivers their music with a certain swag. The end result is a very addictive record that will get a lot of spins.

Adult Oriented D-beat? Uhhhh.... Well, if that's what they want to call themselves, I'm okay with it. What it is? It is D-beat actually. What sets them apart are the vocals. Emilie sang in Bombardement, but had to leave that band due to vocal cord issues, yet here she is again, fronting another D-beat band. This time singing clean, and it works like a charm, opening up new opportunities. There's so much melody on this album, which combined with the aggression and urgency of D-beat gives this band a unique twist on the genre.

I got to know this band through the first single they released on Wap Shoo Wap Records (Tomorrow (Might Never Come) / Used To Be A Tiger) which I liked so much I kept an eye out for new material. I was hooked before intro-track "Street Boogie Confidential" was finished. In fact, when the air raid siren and drums kick in around forty seconds in, that was it. That beat... just savage (pun intended)! What follows is a little over half an hour of unadultered rock n roll fun. There's plenty of late seventies punk and early OI! influences to be found sprinkeled throughout the record. In the end, this is just such a fun record you can spin it again and again.

Some bands simply know how to make every second count, and Joyce Manor remain unmatched in that department. I Used To Go To This Bar distills everything that has made the band one of punk's most beloved acts over the last decade into another collection of instantly memorable songs. Equal parts nostalgic, funny, melancholy, and irresistibly catchy, the album feels effortless while rewarding repeated listens with subtle emotional depth. No record has spent more time in my rotation this year, and none has reminded me more why I fell in love with punk rock in the first place.

After more than fifteen years between full-lengths, the expectations surrounding Peace In Place couldn't have been higher. Somehow Poison The Well exceeded them. Rather than attempting to recreate The Opposite of December or You Come Before You, the band sounds like a group that's grown older without sacrificing the urgency that made them so influential in the first place. Massive riffs, emotional depth, and fearless songwriting prove why their influence continues to echo throughout modern hardcore and metalcore.

Elway have always excelled at writing melodic punk songs that feel deeply personal without becoming self-indulgent, and Nobody's Going To Heaven may be their strongest statement yet. The record wrestles with politics, loss, frustration, and modern uncertainty, but it never loses sight of the hooks that have always made the band special. It's reflective without being hopeless and angry without feeling performative. As expected, The Blasting Room production gives every song the punch it deserves.

There's an effortless charm to Keyframe that makes it impossible not to come back to. Palette Knife blends Midwest emo, pop-punk, and math rock into something that feels endlessly energetic without ever becoming exhausting. The band's love of video games and pop culture is woven naturally into the songwriting rather than feeling gimmicky, while huge choruses and intricate guitar work make every song memorable. It's the kind of album that reminds you why this style of punk continues to resonate decades after it first emerged.

Old-school deathcore has been making a welcome comeback over the last few years, but few bands have captured its spirit as convincingly as Indiana's Mauled. When Your Eyes Are Shut delivers everything that made early deathcore exciting in the first place. It's got crushing breakdowns, frantic riffs, and enough venom to leave bruises. Instead of simply recreating the past, the band injects genuine emotion into the violence, making the EP hit just as hard lyrically as it does musically. Sometimes you don't need reinvention, you just need six songs that absolutely flatten you.

Toys That Kill are really perfecting their recipe of Off With Their Heads anthems with Screeching Weasel singalong parts delivered in their quintessential F.Y.P snotty style here! Since reviewing it I procured myself a physical copy which includes a gatefold-jacketful of lyrics and classic Todd Congeliere art. I just asked Todd what Triple Sabotage means.. (Todd’s a very busy dude so your guess is as good as mine)

Tidal just emailed me to tell me I listened to this album 4 times as much as the next most listened to album (Alien Nosejob) last month. Yes the algorithm sucks and it’s often difficult to find stuff but Tidal is still better than settling for a music app that undervalues (read: rips off) artists and/or funds “defence” technology just because it’s easier to find the latest Huggy Bear release. I don’t feel the need to fill the world with more plastic necessarily either but/so this may be the only record from 2026 of which I’m (still) in need of a physical copy.

It’s a tie! A pair of releases from Chris Mason’s fabulous Dirt Cult Label. Am I allowed to do that? Probably not but hey it feels sorta nepotistic including either of these on my list since they’re all my besties. It should come as no surprise that I love the Dumpies leaning into their unabashed F.Y.P worship and my educated guess is that without Dumpies there maybe wouldn’t be any Physicalist so what me worry?

With Uniboys, GBV and Mod Lang releasing new material this year there’s no shortage of top notch powerpop but this is the band all the punks wearing Cheap Trick shirts should be listening to. Majoring in powerpop with a minor in guitar rock, this amped up Beatles (amplified AND on amphetamines;) was a total oversight that I didn’t mention Softjaw in my year end “Favourite Bands I Played With This Year” in 2025. Bonus points to Oakland’s Dandy Boy Records and Tapes for (finally) compiling all their previous and mostly digital releases on vinyl.

And speaking of favourite bands I played with this year, Frankfurt’s One Trick Pony are a great live band and super nice to boot. I mean all the bands we play with are great and super nice but One Trick Pony stand out for me, kinda reminding me of Seattle’s Wimps musically and lyrically but maybe a chin hair more hardcore? They don’t eat shit, they kick butts. So fun!

A perverse complaint lately has been too much Aesop Rock. It's all great, but arguably a little...diluted. Lice is a collab with Homebody Sandman, who almost steals the show on this one. All the right kinds of weird hip-hop. Abstract, spacerock beats with humblebrags and armchair philosophy. On paper, none of that works. On vinyl, it's magic. 

If you've followed this site and my writing you've noticed I love all of Todd Congelliere's bands. Okay, you haven't because they release material so sporadically. This "return to action" record showcases how TTK always sounds the same while still growing in surprising new directions. It's comfort food in all the best ways. Melodic punk rock with quirky movements, multiple songwriters, and just the right kinds of surprises.

This album was something like 15 years in the making. That can sound bloated, but Payload nails it with The Arrivals' unique take on punk that's equally inspired by mod and Motown. It's rare that punk rock isn't predictable but no two Arrivals songs throughout their discography sound alike. It's thoughtful, heart-on-sleeve blue collar rock 'n' roll played by punk rockers.

A young band that keeps growing and changing -- in great ways. burnout was silly fun. Hellhound is angry. The band didn't grow complacent with (modest) success. They learned not to trust others. The real life experiences suck for them, but it led to some killer angry punk that pulls from the best Riot Grrl without feeling derivative either.

I didn't know it was possible to get heavier and angrier than Paint It Black, but Bitter Branches play post-hardcore that permeates through you. It oozes and drips pure anger. It's pure -- this isn't some cathartic singalong -- and it's so dense and thick you can feel it in your bones. There are elements of hardcore, noise-rock and a lot more -- but while it draws from many influences, it's always focused, cohesive, and authentic.