Punk's not dead, it's just fallen off the mainstream radar. Bands across the country are keeping the punk spirit alive, embracing all forms and eras of the genre. Here are five of the best punk records of the 2010s that are worth checking out:
1. The Stops - "Demo"
The Stops are an all-female group based out of Portland, Oregon. Their sound recalls early female-fronted punk bands like the Avengers and female-fronted alternative rock bands like the Breeders. They utilize a mix of hard, driving guitars and haunting vocals to create a melodic and angsty vibe that taps into the moody middle schooler within us all. The guitar on the opening track, "Rumors", has a melancholic, rough edge that hammers in that feeling of tumultuous adolescent emotions. The band has since released a full-length album, called "Nameless Faces". It features re-recorded versions of the songs featured on the demo tape, but a polished studio recording cannot quite match the raw energy of the original basement recordings.
You can check out their demo here
2. Uranium Club - "Human Exploration"
Uranium Club, also known by the lengthier moniker The Minneapolis Uranium Club, is a Minneapolis based outfit with an incredibly tight and polished sound. They possess an incredibly dense sound, layering catchy riffs over a twitchy rhythm section. The opening riff on "Black Semen" is a blood-pumping, head-banging classic. The band even ventures into alternative and post-punk territory on songs like "Sun Belt", which features rambling spoken lyrics and complex (for punk, anyway) song structure.
You can check out "Human Exploration" here
3. Science Project - "Discogs Attack/Might Makes Right"
Science Project is the solo venture of Cody Googoo, the drummer for the Nova Scotian band, Booji Boys. This cassette-only single features warbly, alien vocals and adenoidal guitars. The title song, "Discogs Attack" is a strange little ditty that pokes fun at the cassette collector subculture that congregates on the music website Discogs. "Might Makes Right" features a wonderfully blown-out rhythm section. The drums and bass are mixed poorly, but it result is an endearing do-it-yourself aesthetic. The cassette's B-side, "Sick in Halifax" is a chilly instrumental evocative of "Seventeen Seconds" era the Cure. It features a chintzy synth line that sounds like it was performed on a Casio keyboard. Science Project is an idiosyncratic act, and the three songs on this single provide an accurate sampling of Googoo's solo work.
You can check out "Discogs Attack/Might Makes Right" here
4. Mike Krol - "I Hate Jazz"
Mike Krol is a California-based musician who sounds like the slacker lovechild of Jay Reatard and Weezer. Songs like "Seventeen (Age)" and "A Million Times" exude feelings of long-forgotten suburban malaise. Every song on "I Hate Jazz" feels like a Gen X anthem, even though the album was released in 2011. The tinny keyboards and scuzzy guitars are the epitome of the rough-on-purpose garage rock sound. Krol is dedicated to the old-school approach, he still records all of his albums on analog tape, and the effort shows. "I Hate Jazz" is eight straight tracks of fuzzy nostalgia for some idealistic high school summer.
You can check out "I Hate Jazz" here
5. The Coneheads - "L.P.1. aka "14 Year Old High School PC-Fascist Hype Lords Rip Off Devo for the Sake of Extorting $$$ from Helpless Impressionable Midwestern Internet Peoplepunks L.P.""
The Coneheads are the brainchild of the Midwest wunderkind Mark Winter, who has had a hand in nearly every band to come out of the Northwest Indiana punk scene. The group embraces the speed and aggression of early 1980s hardcore bands, but with the weirdo edge of new wave and synthpunk bands. The end product is a band somewhere in between The Gizmos and Devo. The band marches to the beat of its own drum, both literally and figuratively. The 17 songs on the album speed along at a herky-jerky rhythm that is as off-putting as it is catchy. The album was only released in 2015, but its influence can already be felt in acts like Science Project and nearly every other modern punk band with a keyboard. If the album's obnoxiously long title is any indication, the Coneheads do not take themselves seriously. The record features two versions of the same song, "Hack Hack Hack" back-to-back, one a straightforward hardcore version, the other a creepy synth dirge. It is a high mark of the wacky new wave influenced punk bands that populate Bandcamp.
