The new year has only just begun, but 2018 already promises to be a year replete with great punk and hardcore offerings. There are hotly anticipated records from young up-and-comers and equally exciting releases from time-tested veterans. There are reunion records from some of our personal favorites and others that cathartically speak to today’s crazed sociopolitical landscape.
In true punk rock fashion, this year’s crop of releases comes in many different shapes, sizes, and sounds, and the versatility is promising to say the least. Senior writers Collin Brennan and Ryan Bray sorted through this year’s upcoming punk releases and cherry-picked a small handful that fans should keep their ears open for. Okay, we’ve said our piece. We’ll see ya in the pit.
Ought – Room Inside the World
Release Date: 2/16 on Merge Records
How does a band follow up on breakthrough critical success? There’s never an easy answer, but Ought has so far done a credible job of keeping their steadily growing momentum going. The band turned some serious heads with their first two records; 2014’s More Than Any Other Day and 2015’s Sun’s Coming Down. The buzz was enough to attract the attention of Merge Records, who will release the Montreal art punks’ third effort in February. For Room Inside the World, the band enlisted the services of producer Nicolas Vernhes, whose past credits include work with other experimental-minded acts like Animal Collective and the Dirty Projectors. So far, the collaboration seems to have coaxed some new sounds out of the foursome. “These Three Things”, the record’s first single, still finds Ought indulging their artier instincts, but it sounds more in line with New Order than the Television and Pavement influences of the band’s past records. –Ryan Bray
Superchunk – What a Time to Be Alive
Release Date: 2/16 via Merge
It doesn’t take a truffle pig to sniff out the irony in the title to Superchunk’s forthcoming 11th studio album, What a Time to Be Alive. But just in case you couldn’t read between the lines, the North Carolina rockers went ahead and shared the bitingly sarcastic title track, a pop punk stomper that features what might as well be the defining sentiment of the Trump era: “The scum, the shame, the fucking lies/ Oh, what a time to be alive.” Superchunk already proved they’re back on their game with 2010’s Majesty Shredding and 2013’s I Hate Music, but it will be interesting to see if they can stay vital while indulging in some righteous political cynicism. –Collin Brennan
The Men – Drift
Release Date: 3/2 on Sacred Bones Records
Since forming in 2008, The Men have crafted one of the most exciting and unpredictable bodies of work in the American punk and hardcore underground. The band navigated its way from the pulverizing noise of its earliest records to a sound more informed by country and straight-forward rock and roll, only to shift back to its ferocious roots on 2016’s Devil’s Music. That Drift, the Brooklyn act’s latest effort due out March 2nd, again marks a sonic shift is at this point to be expected, but it’s always hard to anticipate where exactly they might land next. Based on the record’s first single, “Maybe I’m Crazy”, The Men are ready to try their hand at their own warped interpretation of industrial and new wave. The song sounds like a new sonic fit for the band while still indebted to its noisy, experimental roots. –Ryan Bray
Titus Andronicus – A Productive Cough
Release Date: 3/2 via Merge
It’s almost a farce to call Titus Andronicus a punk band in the wake of 2015’s The Most Lamentable Tragedy, a 93-minute rock opera with quasi-literary ambitions and a tendency to gobble up genres indiscriminately. That album was rumored to be the group’s last, and it certainly sounded as if singer-songwriter Patrick Stickles was leading the charge of his Light Brigade with no thought toward the future. But it turns out that Stickles and co. have at least one more cough in them before the final bang, and if new single “Number One (In New York)” is any indication, it will be a slower, quieter gasp for air this time around. We keep waiting on Stickles to quit trying to top himself, but “Number One” might be the band’s most sprawling track yet — an eight-minute slow build that arrives at chaos without the crutch of thrashing guitars. –Collin Brennan
Acid Dad – Acid Dad
Release Date: 3/9 via Greenway Records
Acid Dad’s origin story stretches all the way back to 2014, when the Brooklyn psych-punks pooled their super powers at a drag show and a star was born. They’ve pulled much of the New York punk scene into their orbit since then (and left more than a few venues trashed in their wake), but they’ve only just got around to recording a proper debut album. The full-length format would seem to lend itself to the dynamic melodies that bubble underneath the fury of their live set, and it should give even more room for the occasional bluesy guitar riff and psychedelic freak-out. –Collin Brennan