The 25 Best Punk Albums of 2024

The calendar has turned to 2025 and 2024 is already fading in the rearview mirror. That’s not going to stop us from looking back at last year’s best punk releases, however, because the need for great punk bands making great punk rock never subsides. In fact, it might be more needed than ever. Below, you’ll find a roundup of the 20 best punk albums of 2024, including career highlights from Amyl and the Sniffers, Mannequin Pussy and Candy, welcome returns from Kriegshög and Gouge Away, and impressive efforts from up-and-comers like The Gobs, Combat and Busted Head Racket. Enjoy!

Amyl and the Sniffers: Cartoon Darkness

Cartoon Darkness is the perfect combination of Amyl and The Sniffers’ signature garage punk sound with ventures into poppier, more introspective terrain. Like one and a half minutes of a sonic jackhammer going wild, “It’s Mine” exemplifies the band’s ability to channel the savage, bristling thrill of a young Ozzy Osbourne. Their second album, Comfort To Me (2021), gave Taylor a platform to voice her battle with an emotional rollercoaster, fighting the negativity of being isolated as both the sole woman in many rooms and as a result of stringent lockdowns in Melbourne during the pandemic. She remains blessedly unafraid to voice her personal and political views without polishing them up for easy digestion. “We’re all pigs after all!” she hollers on the aptly titled “Pigs.” Accompanied by a noodling, headbanging solo from guitarist Declan (Dec) Mehrtens and a malevolent bassline courtesy of Gus Romer, it’s full catharsis in barely two-and-a-half minutes. Still dripping in sweat from high-octane performances at Primavera, Glastonbury, Coachella, Green Man, Osheaga, Outside Lands, Best Keep Secret and All Points East, Amyl and the Sniffers headed into the Foo Fighters’ 606 Studios in Los Angeles with acclaimed British producer Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Anna Calvi, Idles, Nick Cave) who has done a stunning job on the Peaky Blinders soundtracks. It is a credit to Launay that this album sounds wholly Amyl without the distraction of a heavy-handed producer. —Cat Woods [Rough Trade]

Read: “Amyl and the Sniffers Play It Softer”

Beige Banquet: Ornamental Hermit

On its earlier releases, Beige Banquet was, more or less, the DIY recording project of Tom Brierley, who built his sinewy songs out of programmed beats, lo-fi synths and barbed guitars. On Ornamental Hermit, the band is now a five-piece, and those five folks take Brierley’s tunes and arrange them into muscular, propulsive post-punk that swaggers as much as it sneers. It’s always fun to watch a band evolve exactly as it should, and that’s what happened here. —Ben Salmon [Swish Swash]

Bootlicker: 1000 Yd. Stare

I have a confession to make: Paste’s list of 2021’s best punk albums—which I compiled—should have included the self-titled full-length debut from Vancouver, Canada’s Bootlicker. (You figure out which record it replaces, though. I can’t.) Bootlicker was an absolute buzzsaw of an album, and 1000 Yd. Stare dispenses more of the same: Ferocious, pedal-to-the-metal street punk shredded by a raw, blown-out production style and threaded with the kind of fears and frustrations that accompany life in our increasingly shitty times. “Violent music for a vile world,” they call it, and they’re right… about everything. —Ben Salmon [Static Shock/Neon Taste]

Busted Head Racket: Go! Go! Go!

Everyone in Australia has a punk band, it seems, and most of them are good! Among the best is Busted Head Racket, a vessel for the torrent of ideas coming out of singer, songwriter, visual artist and all-around creative spark plug Arden Guff. On the band’s Bandcamp page, Guff calls Busted Head Racket’s music “silly little noises I make in my bedroom,” which is both reasonably accurate and also significantly underselling her wiggly synth-driven earworms. Whether you embrace the genre or its name makes you roll your eyes, this is egg-punk at its Grade A egg-iest. —Ben Salmon [Erste Theke Tonträger]

Candy: It’s Inside You

You learn a lot about Candy within the first 15 seconds of “eXistenZ,” the first track on It’s Inside You. There’s the filthy, bone-rattling bass line. Snare drums that would send a theater full of people running for the exits. A throat-shredding bark and then some warped blasts of mechanized industrial noise. Once a straightforward—albeit brutal—hardcore band, Candy’s third full-length delivers on the promise of their 2022 breakthrough, Heaven Is Here, by pushing further into hellish metal, twisted electronics and pulverizing grooves. Merciless savagery has never sounded so darn hooky! —Ben Salmon [Relapse]

Chat Pile: Cool World

Chat Pile’s noise rock foundation is solid, but the band gleefully veers between sludge metal (“Milk of Human Kindness”) and noisy post-punk (“Shame”). “Frownland” is downright groovy, and without Raygun Busch’s screams on “Tape,” Chat Pile could be convincingly labeled funk-rock. They’re scholars of the aggressive metal and punk traditions of the Clinton and George W. Bush years, channeling that soup of aggression towards a vision of global rot. More than once, warfare catches Chat Pile’s gaze, and they speak plainly to the atrocities made public: “In their parents arms / The kids were falling apart / Broken tiny bodies /Holding tiny still hearts,” Busch utters on “Shame.” There’s the pointless, arguably pathetic sacrifices made to become a tool of war as told on “Funny Man”: “The wicked jester is dancing and clapping / As my big strong hands kill the people they told me / There are times that I can almost believe it / I can almost imagine I was meant to do this and be here.” Less obviously obnoxious violence is the star of sibling tracks “Tape” and “Camcorder,” moments to consider how gruesome atrocities are a part of the everyday under a regime uninterested in preventing them in favor of the bottom line. Chat Pile looks within on “Masc,” with frenetic guitar and swinging bass gnarling beneath Raygun’s comparatively nervous lyrics. He sounds like a man who wants love but lacks sureness of self, inflected with anxiety that reminds me how, to borrow a phrase, this whole thing smacks of gender. Chat Pile lean into a normie masculinity, adopting pseudonyms but performing in regular garb and maintaining low-key personas off-stage. Their presentation is approachable, even if the music is bleak. There’s something about their normality that makes their foreboding messages a hair more chilling: Out of the mouths of men in leather and corpse paint, one can expect lyrics this grim, but out of the mouths of someone who dresses like your neighbor and otherwise acts like a regular person, the human capacity for desolation is on full display. The cranks are not the only ones sensing that the world is permanently twisted. —Devon Chodzin [The Flenser]

Chubby and the Gang: And Then There Was…

Chubby and the Gang sounds like a … well, a gang. But really, Chubby and the Gang is Charlie Manning, proud owner of a heavy-grit sandpaper singing voice, an impressive moustache and the fertile brain behind three of the best punk albums of the 2020s. The latest is And Then There Was…, a collection of 16 pub-punk tunes that blend shout-along choruses, reckless speed and classic ‘70s rock moves into a whole that goes down as easy as a pint at your local after a long day of work. Bottoms up! —Ben Salmon [Flatspot]

Combat: Stay Golden

If you want a photo op with emo’s most iconic landmark, you’ll have to make a pilgrimage to the American Football House in Urbana, Illinois, but you’ll have more fun hitting up hotspots in the Mid-Atlantic. Or you can just watch the video for “Stay Golden,” the breathless title track from Combat’s latest LP, in which a gorilla chases the Baltimore band past the exact spot on the Ocean City boardwalk where the cover photo for The Promise Ring’s Nothing Feels Good was taken. Like other emo classics before it, Stay Golden deals with the tireless 20-something angst that follows you even on a day at the beach, presented in shoutable choruses, harmonized guitar leads, and solid gold pop-punk hooks so shiny you can hear them sparkle in the sun (wait, sorry, is that a glockenspiel?). Produced by Ryland Heagy of Origami Angel, it finds Combat stepping into emo’s storied lineage while also dropping their own pin on the map. Future album cover walking tours won’t be complete without a stop at the Art Deco facade of the Senator Theater in Baltimore. I’m going to start calling it the Stay Golden Theater. —Taylor Ruckle [Counter Intuitive]

Ekko Astral: pink balloons

Considering the legacy of D.C.’s 40-year punk history—as groups like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Faith and Scream helped lay the hardcore foundation that’s still plugged into the city’s spirit—Ekko Astral fit right into a mold built for them to thrive in. And still, it feels like a small miracle that they’ve been able to break out like this. Born from Holzman and Hughes’ friendship after meeting each other as students at the University of Vermont, Ekko Astral embody the scene that made them—and, in an era where “scene” music is growing thinner and thinner, the release of pink balloons feels like a righteous and radical victory lap before the race has even started. And few bands have ever really achieved that sort of open-and-shut firepower. Normally it takes some groups a couple of records to get their wheels spinning; Ekko Astral and their “mascara mosh pit” sound are a beacon of joy and breaking points—through the noise of 11 tracks comes a resounding sense of urgent, non-negotiable optimism. What sticks out most about pink balloons is Ekko Astral’s commitment to singing like their generation speaks, which is how you get a barn-burning, circuit-breaking masher like “uwu type beat,” where Holzman, like a glitched-out, Kim Deal-like messenger, bemoans learning to love online and the “empty suit guys” who abuse TouchTunes at the bar. But such era-specific language and cultural references never register like they will become outdated as soon as the next wave of slang is built or the next lineage of celebrities grab hold of their 15 minutes of fame. Instead, like all good punk records we’ve been returning to for 40 years, the music of pink balloons comes across like an archive that captures a moment that will, someday, look different but sound the same. —Matt Mitchell [Topshelf]

Read: “Ekko Astral: The Best of What’s Next”

Gel: Persona

New Jersey hardcore band GEL dropped their debut LP last year and lived up to their “THE FREAKS WILL INHERIT THE EARTH” proclamation that welcomed listeners to their Bandcamp page. Only Constant was a splash of a much-needed rebirth for a genre still lingering in its hyper-masculine past, and Persona helps carry that momentous reinvention forward. “Foundation built to crumble, fighting back the collapse,” Sami Kaiser wails on “Mirage.” “Refuse to die by your roof, much rather swing my own axe.” Persona is thick and devilish from beginning to end, turning tracks like “Shame,” “Vanity” and “Martyr” into these visceral, raw-hemmed chaos and blood-curdling empowerment. GEL are the blueprint for hardcore’s bright future; Persona ought to become a pillar of the genre. —Matt Mitchell [Blue Grape]

Gouge Away: Deep Sage

Somehow, five and a half years passed between the release of Gouge Away’s excellent second album, Burnt Sugar, and their third, Deep Sage. The former revealed the Florida quintet as not just another hardcore band, but a hardcore band with an adventurous spirit and the chops to cogently push and pull on the genre’s boundaries. The latter brings that potential to life. Recorded after a hiatus that gave Gouge Away time to exhale and evolve, Deep Sage is a tour de force of alt-rock, noise-punk and post-hardcore built around the compelling howls of vocalist Christina Michelle. It also just sounds great; you can hear the echoes of the Pixies, The Jesus Lizard and In Utero-era Nirvana coming through loud and clear. —Ben Salmon [Deathwish]

Hayes Noble: As It Was, As We Were

Hayes Noble is 19 years old. His band includes his father on drums and his brother on bass. They all live in Spokane, Washington, where they’re working to grow the all-ages scene. And Dad runs his own label, which put out Hayes’ second album, As It Was, As We Were, in June. If you like loud guitars, it’s an irresistible bag of swirling, fuzzed-out headphone candies that taste like Dinosaur Jr, Built to Spill, Hüsker Dü and Japandroids. These candies have been around for a while, but boy do they still taste great, especially in the very capable hands of Hayes Noble. Did we mention he’s 19? —Ben Salmon [Two Two One Press]

Kriegshög: Love & Revenge

There are fast, heavy riffs and then there are riffs that feel like more than sound—like you can reach out and touch them, hold them in your hands, do some bicep curls. Use ‘em to anchor a boat. Load ‘em into a missile launcher and fire ‘em at The Man. These are the kind of riffs all over Love & Revenge, the first album in 14 years from Japanese hardcore legends Kriegshög. It’s their second full-length, and it’s beefier, groovier and catchier than their debut, which isn’t terribly surprising, since their debut came out during Obama’s first term. Bands change, y’know? Here’s what hasn’t changed about Kriegshög: They still make some of the rawest, crustiest, most bass-driven punk on the planet. —Ben Salmon [La Vida Es Un Mus Discos]

Knocked Loose: You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To

You know that meme about bringing back the nasty riff but slower? Knocked Loose’s fourth album, You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, is the paragon of bringing back the nasty riff but slower. Sometimes, the Kentucky metal band brings back the slowed riff and makes it even slower, going halftime and then quartertime like the best kind of sickos. These are songs that take twists and turns, like a disorienting maze that, as soon as you’ve gathered your bearings, a new path reveals itself. —Grant Sharples [Pure Noise]

Mannequin Pussy: I Got Heaven

Throughout I Got Heaven, Mannequin Pussy’s punk becomes more pliable, intermingling with sprightly synths (“I Don’t Know You”), breezy vocal hooks (“Nothing Like”) and a stripped-down bridge that builds into distant roars (“Softly”). That textural variety shines as one of I Got Heaven’s greatest assets, yet its most discordant songs remain the strongest of the lot. “I Got Heaven” rolls into the equally barbed tune “Loud Bark,” a segue so natural that the tracks feel like two acts of the same narrative. “I got a loud bark / Deep bite,” Dabice spits on the refrain, exhaling each word with a breathy heave. The divine one-two punch is the highlight of the record, a perfect pairing of songs that supplies an unwavering sense of protection and solidarity. The lyrics “For what they did to you / I will never lay to rest” from the title track remain the most poignant lines on the record—a mighty feat, considering “Of Her” professes the grisly chant “Yes I suffer for the money / Serve me on a platter and then cut me.” The back half of the record proves to be a bulldozer of sound, fueled by a high-octane clash between rage and yearning. Here lie the record’s most unrelenting moments, which pummel listeners through lyrical repetition: Dabice’s mounting howls of “I got to / I got to / I GOT to / I GOT TO BE FREE” on “Aching,” and the rapid-fire refrain of “OK? OK! OK? OK!,” a grinding duet that lends the mic to bassist Colins “Bear” Regisford. Mannequin Pussy’s map of utopia may span uneven terrain, but the band dominates every inch of it, forging cohesive paths between harsh and heavenly melodies. The feat renews one of punk’s lasting tenets for a new era of activism: to protect what’s precious—freedom, community or otherwise—you usually have to raise a little hell. —Victoria Wasylak [Epitaph]

Read: “Mannequin Pussy’s Divine Intervention”

Paprika: Let’s Kill Punk

For a quick vibe check on Paprika’s debut album, just scan its song titles: “Madness Mantra” and “Greasy Pig Disease” and “Insane Machine,” plus the title track, which aims to bring the whole thing down from the inside. On Let’s Kill Punk, the New Orleans band sounds approximately 10 times its actual size, thanks to big, chunky guitar riffs that seem to never stop and a production approach that is somehow both brisk and burly at the same time. Paprika packs more punch into its sound than pretty much anyone. —Ben Salmon [Iron Lung]

Poison Ruïn: Confrere

Poison Ruïn’s Hä​rvest was arguably the best punk album of 2023—”a slow descent into a candlelit cave of d-beat punk,” we said in last year’s list. At just seven tracks long, Confrere feels like a victory lap, showcasing (again) the Philly band’s uncommon combo of muscle, speed, melody, doom, gloom and searing social commentary. Poison Ruïn scowls in the face of darkness, giving the rest of us a sliver of hope for the future. More isn’t always better, but it is when you’re talking about more music from a band at the top of its game. —Ben Salmon [Self-Released]

Public Opinion: Painted On Smile

Denver’s terrific Convulse Records label is known as a leading distributor of hardcore, but its best release in 2024 was this slab of punchy pop-punk from fellow Denverites Public Opinion. With production help from like-minded rockers Ian Shelton (Militarie Gun), Taylor Young (Twitching Tongues) and James Goodson (Dazy), the band stocks Painted On Smile with thunderous drums, catchy guitars and enough fist-pumping fun to fuel the friendliest mosh pit. (Note: For another excellent non-hardcore Convulse release from last year, check out American Culture’s jangle-psych blazer Hey Brother, It’s Been A While. It rules.) —Ben Salmon [Convulse]

Split System: Vol.2

As if Melbourne, Australia didn’t already have enough good punk bands, Split System formed during the COVID-19 pandemic among dudes who knew each other from playing in other bands and were itching to hit the ground running once lockdowns were lifted. Consider “the ground” properly scorched! Vol.1 came out in 2022 and it’s good, but Vol.2 is a whole different animal: The pace feels quicker, the guitar licks are sicker, the hooks are sharper and they’re jumping out of the speakers this time. Split System is a classic garage-punk band with a bit of classic rock swagger and enough muscle to pull it all off. —Ben Salmon [Legless/Goner/Drunken Sailor]

Straw Man Army: Earthworks

As we head into a new year—one promising economic, environmental, social and political uncertainty and unrest—Straw Man Army’s Earthworks will be an essential companion. The New York City duo’s third album picks up where 2022’s SOS left off, setting anarcho-punk ideals against lean post-punk arrangements supercharged with krautrock’s insistence, guitar jangles and angles, and the spaciousness of ambient music. As a result, these songs feel light and hopeful, despite the fear and frustration that simmers in the lyrics: “America will never last. To survive in the dark, try to breathe and slow your heart. And quiet down your mind.” Straw Man Army is the right band for right now. —Ben Salmon [La Vida Es Un Mus Discos]

The Carp: Knock Your Block Off

If this list was just a bit longer, it would include Pulsating Gore, the excellent album from Cleveland weirdos Knowso. Alas, our “Cleveland weirdos” slot must be filled by The Carp, whose 2024 full-length Knock Your Block Off takes some of punk’s stranger ingredients—angular guitars, whiplash rhythms, spoken word—and uses them to just plain kick some ass. The result is a record that sounds like Devo letting their nasty streak show, or the Buzzcocks caked in a thick layer of unidentifiable gunk. The Carp shares a member (or members) with Knowso, by the way. Ohio forever. —Ben Salmon [Total Punk]

The Chisel: What A Fucking Nightmare

It is instructive that the second track on The Chisel’s sophomore album is called “No Gimmicks” because you’d be hard-pressed to find a more gimmick-free punk song released in 2024. Just 93 seconds long, it barrels downhill at top speed with the brakes disabled as vocalist Cal Graham shouts truth to power like a man trying to spit out his teeth. Blessed with visceral vitriol and memorable melodies in equal measure, The Chisel is the new exemplar of U.K. street punk, and What A Fucking Nightmare is probably the most bracing punk album of the year. —Ben Salmon [Pure Noise]

The Gobs: The Gobs

After self-releasing a slew of primitive demos, singles and EPs over the past few years, The Gobs grew up ever so slightly in 2025. They have a website now! They showed their faces by playing some gigs in and around their hometown of Olympia, Washington. And they released what seems to be a self-titled debut album with production help from Aussie scene giants Kel Mason (Gee Tee) and Ishka Edmeades (Tee Vee Repairman, Satanic Togas, etc.). Don’t fret, though: The eight songs on The Gobs clock in well under 12 minutes, and they retain the breakneck pace, snotty attitude, sense of humor and scuzzy, synth-driven sound that make this band so much fun. —Ben Salmon [Relapse] [Self-Released]

The OBGMs: SORRY, IT’S OVER

“This is a black-fronted punk band, and that’s really important,” says OBGMs vocalist/guitarist Densil McFarlane. “Rock ‘n’ roll is mostly white suburban kids—that’s what gets promoted. But we are black and we out here.” Thank goodness! Based in Toronto, McFarlane and his mates bring not only much-needed perspective to punk, but also incredible energy, indelible hooks and gang vocals as far as the ear can hear. This is unbridled pop-punk of the highest order; SORRY, IT’S OVER will fit comfortably in between your PUP and Jeff Rosenstock LPs, bringing some melanin to the shelf at the same time. —Ben Salmon [Self-Released]

Why Bother?: Hey, At Least You’re Not Me

As you probably know if you’ve read this far, the Cincinnati punk label Feel It Records just doesn’t miss. That means Iowa weirdo-punks Why Bother? released not one but two good records last year: Serenading Unwanted Ballads in March and, in October, Hey, At Least You’re Not Me. On both, the prolific Iowa band slither through some shadowy spaces, infusing their dead-eyed punk with queasy synths, strange noises, vaguely spooky vibes and a sort of DIY unsteadiness that makes the whole thing feel unsettling in the very best way. —Ben Salmon [Feel It]