‘In Defense of the Genre’: Best Punk & Emo Songs of March

In Defense of the Genre is a column on BrooklynVegan about punk, pop punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, ska-punk, and more, including and often especially the bands and albums and subgenres that weren’t always taken so seriously.

Dear Matty Healy, Steve Aoki, The Bear star Matty Matheson, and everyone else who likes DIY punk, hardcore, and emo, I have a list of 10 new songs from March for you to check out. But first, some news and recent features.

When we last spoke, Texas Is The Reason were not an active band. But now, they are! They’re on two of the punk festivals that were announced this past month, Best Friends Forever and Furnace Fest. Other fests announced this month with the IDOTG stamp of approval: Sound and Fury, This Is Hardcore, Four Chord Fest, New Friends Fest, and Pug Fest, plus day two of Asbury Park’s Sea.Hear.Now is looking pretty nice with blink-182, Public Enemy, TV On The Radio, Hot Mulligan, and Mannequin Pussy. Other stuff to check out: the list of confirmed songs for the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 reissues and a screamo/metalcore tribute to Death Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism.

Punk-related features and podcasts we ran in March:

* Peripheral Vision at 10 with Turnover‘s Austin Getz

* Bayside’s self-titled LP at 10 with Anthony Raneri

* Jivebomb‘s Kat Madeira breaks down debut LP Ethereal track-by-track

* Ingrown‘s Ross Hansen picks 10 albums to dirt bike to

* Pics and review of Refused, Quicksand, and Orange 9mm at the NYC stop of Refused’s farewell tour

* March album reviews: Weatherday, Tiny Voices, Young Widows, Mikau, Jivebomb, Doomsday, Ingrown, Harrison Gordon, Great Grandpa, Downward, and Deafheaven.

Some new exclusive vinyl we recently launched includes the 10th anniversary edition of Turnover’s Peripheral Vision (“candied avocado” vinyl), Terror’s Live at CBGB 2004 (tri-color vinyl), Less Than Jake’s Hello Rockview (apple/lemon/sky blue vinyl), the new Underoath album (various color vinyl), the new Coheed & Cambria album (clear/black/magenta), the 10th anniversary edition of Microwave’s Stovall (blue/yellow/pink), the 25th anniversary edition of H2O’s Faster Than The World (opaque yellow & green), the 30th anniversary edition of Cap’n Jazz’s Shmap’n Shmazz (ice blue), and more.

Head below for my picks of the 10 best songs of March that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.

Charmer – “Arrowhead”

Michigan’s Charmer were some of emo’s most promising up-and-comers back in the late 2010s, but life comes at you fast. Their sophomore album Ivy came out just a few weeks after the world went into lockdown (on the label No Sleep, which since shuttered), and three of the band’s four members picked up a whole new set of responsibilities after becoming parents. Not to mention two of them have been splitting their time in music between Charmer and playing in Liquid Mike’s band. Before we knew it, five years had flown by, and now Charmer are finally ready to release a new album, titled Downpour. They found a new home at one of the most reliable labels for new-school emo, Counter Intuitive Records, and Downpour‘s lead single “Arrowhead” sounds like a fresh new start and a leap forward for Charmer. It finds them leaning more than ever into hard-charging, hook-oriented early 2000s emo (it kinda reminds me of Senses Fail), and they’ve managed to mine that era for its thrills while leaving its more regrettable elements in the dust.

Record Setter – “Peace In A Memory”

Texas emo/screamo band Record Setter only released three songs in the time since their excellent 2020 album I Owe You Nothing and the beginning of this year, but now they’re finally back with a slightly lengthier new release, a six-song EP called Evoke Invoke that the band is self-releasing this week (4/4). First single “Peace In A Memory” is a great reminder of what made this band hit so hard when I Owe You Nothing dropped. It’s a passionate, overwhelmingly sincere screamo song that takes place at a funeral and unpacks the emotions of losing a friend at a young age. It’s not hard to see why Touché Amoré vocalist Jeremy Bolm took an interest in this band.

XweaponX – “Everybody Breaks”

Knocked Loose are bigger than ever, but vocalists Bryan Garris and Isaac Hale have not gotten too big for their britches. They still embrace their raw DIY roots with their side project XweaponX, a straightedge metallic hardcore band that also features Dave Baugher on lead vocals and Bryan’s brother Trey Garris (also of Gates To Hell) on drums. On their first new song in two years, Dave, Bryan, and Isaac all share vocal duties, and it’s a thrill to hear the latter two’s instantly-recognizable voices–along with Dave’s own ferocious bark–in this more stripped-back setting.

Everybody Breaks by xWeaponx

Xiao – “Wrong”

Xiao are a new-ish band from Sweden who love mid 2000s powerviolence-leaning US hardcore bands like Coke Bust, Mind Eraser, and Hatred Surge, and they make that stuff sound new again on their upcoming debut LP for Twelve Gauge, Control. Latest single “Wrong” is a fast, sludgy whirlwind and it’s taken to the next level by the truly vicious shrieks of vocalist Emelie Johannesson. On this song, Emelie writes about “the neurodivergent freaks that don’t fit in anywhere, but aren’t considered sick enough to get help,” with anger and frustration that can be heard from a mile away.

Ursula – “Shan’t”

You know that feeling when everything happening in the world at large leaves you totally crushed and hopeless, but you also just have some routine shit that you need to do? Apple Valley, California hardcore band Ursula also know that feeling, and they wrote a minute-long hardcore song about it that’ll tear your face off. Their debut LP I Don’t Like Anything drops this week (4/4) via Indecision Records.

Rodeo Boys – “All American Man”

The first taste of Rodeo Boys’ upcoming album Junior (produced by Tom May of The Menzingers, due 4/25 via Don Giovanni) is a ragged, alt-country-ish indie rock song that’s gritty enough to remind you that alt-country and indie rock came from punk in the first place. It kinda sounds like a cross between ’90s Hole and ’60s Neil Young (even more so than the literal example of that), and it’s one of the multiple songs on Junior that the band calls a “tale of desperate gay love and queer identity.” Every verse sounds like it’s on the brink of explosion, and every chorus takes it there.

Tape Trash – “Since 94”

Tiny Engines’ press release says Norwegian duo Tape Trash’s new single “Since 94” is recommended if you like Japandroids and Mew, and I don’t think I could’ve pictured how a single song could have common ground with both Japandroids and Mew. That is, until I heard “Since 94.”

Wakelee – “mildlyinteresting”

The band who was subject of the lead review in this column last month (Arm’s Length) and this month’s lead review (Charmer) are playing shows together this June after both bands’ new albums come out. And the third band on those shows is Brooklyn emo band Wakelee, who are fresh off releasing a new EP called Doghouse. And if you’re as excited about these new Arm’s Length and Charmer albums as I am, I think you’ll definitely like Wakelee too. The EP’s opening track “mildlyinteresting” is an indie-emo-pop banger that’s much more than mildly interesting. It’s broadly in the Modern Baseball/Carly Cosgrove realm without sounding like any one band in particular, and it comes with an extremely addictive chorus about posting on the internet instead of talking to friends in real life.

Mclusky – “People Person”

Mclusky appeared in the late ’90s/early 2000s as one of the best makers of sneering, sarcastic, noisy post-hardcore this side of The Jesus Lizard, and their classics have stood the test of time as this particular niche continued to produce new bands (Pissed Jeans, Chat Pile, etc) and never go out of style. Now, Mclusky are gearing up to release their first album in 21 years, The World Is Still Here and So Are We, and new single “People Person” is the snottiest, messiest song from the record that I’ve heard yet. Mclusky have still got it.

Hold My Own – “No Respect Due” (ft. Sunami’s Josef Alfonso)

Sometimes you just want some fun, dumb, tough-guy hardcore that you can yell along to after one listen. “No Respect Due” is one of those songs.

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In an effort to cover as many bands as possible, I try to just do one single per album cycle in these monthly roundups, so catch up on previous months’ lists for even more:

* Best Songs of February

* Best Songs of January

* Best Songs of December

* Best Songs of November

* Best Songs of October

* Best Songs of September

For even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2025.

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Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.

Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.