playlist: the 60 best punk songs of april 2026

Being a member of the corporate music media who worked nights and weekends meant not getting out to as many shows. There was this culture at Pitchfork that I wasn’t part of, and I had to make my peace with that pretty early on. My coworkers were in New York City going to shows and hanging out together; I was a Midwest night owl watching the wall so my colleagues could log off at the function. It was my teenage dream job, and it required pragmatic compromise. “Hey, could you please remember to not cc me on these emails,” I once told an editor when informed of free donuts in the New York City break room.

In the past couple years after that job, I’ve been around a lot more—staying out late at shows, giggling and bullshitting with the homies in backyards and parking lots. Most of the people I talk to at shows are in bands that I really like, which is a loose kind of tension since I’ve probably written something about them (and can’t remember for the life of me what I said). Still: I’m an observer, a listener, a sponge for gossip—an absolute pig in shit.

One year after starting see/saw, I was standing outside with my back against a venue during a rainstorm while a guy in a band I love told me that I should be more negative as a critic. I explained that it really wasn’t where I was as a writer. Punk—the music, community, and everything that word implies—was a buoy out of a dark period. Negativity would feel manufactured and artificial, so I just didn’t write about the bad stuff.

I called see/saw a love letter to punk and rock'n'roll in its nascency, and that’s still very much the case. Two years in, I still get stoked about new records every week. I love hearing about new bands forming and records on the horizon. I’m probably gradually getting bitchier as a punk writer when I hear mediocre music from a legacy artist who can and has done better, but then I spend more of my energy writing 2,000-word columns about the exciting stuff in a given week. Then I go to shows and geek out with my friends about punk records.

teeter/totter: a see/saw benefit is a compilation spawned from my life both as a hermetic music writer and a social butterfly with ringing ears. There are bands that I’ve admired from afar and never met; there are artists I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know a little bit. It’s all new songs benefiting the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and the Immigrant Defense Network. So far, I’ve donated $1,000 to each organization from proceeds. Thanks to everyone who’s checked it out, and more tapes are coming soon if you missed out the first time.

April was a powerful month for new punk records. These are the songs I liked the best (including two picks from the aforementioned see/saw comp).

see/saw’s 60 best punk songs of april 2026

Media Puzzle: Knowledge
Oddfellows: The Burden
Fül Coverage: Fool Coverage
Answering Machines: Crushing Blow
Triple Ente: Los Pájaros
Eddy Current Suppression Ring: I Need Some Space
G.R.O.M.I.T.: What Can You Do
Tonya: The Obstacle
Body Shop: Fallacies
The Tubs: Fade to Black
Yleiset Syyt: Sotakoneet
Puzzlehead: Inventory
CS Cleaners: What’s That?
Collaps: You Don’t Get Shit
Useless Eaters: CONTRAST
Brendan Wells: I Rent
Sleep Cult: Boring
Tórax y Las Extremidades: Combustión espontánea
Billiam: Barbie Doll Brains [Plastic Toy Mix]
Five Bucks: Metal Fumes Fever
Mopar Stars: Feast for the Smile
Choncy: Just Like Them
Taxi Girls: Say It!
Cronies: rose
GÖTRI: YOUR UTOPIA, MY DYSTOPIA
Awesome Snakes: Money (censored)
The Subletters: Polishing a Knife
Urq: This Dismal Village
Subtle Turnhips: Pink Syd
700 Club: Black Iron Prison
Shaved Ape: Gutless
Democracy: Violent Dreams
Mary Jam: REST IN PISS
Surrealistic Pillhead: Chaos Stone
Robber Robber: Talkback
Winston Hightower: Selfish Soother
Assembly: Spotlights
Season 2: Holiday
Skintern: Floorboards
Gentilesky: Heavenly Body
Clubhouse: Scum of Society
Termite: Panic Hotline
Socke: Unten
Violet Bloom: Cognito (I Am)
La RAF: Desposeídos
Witch Piss: Barbarian
Edging: This Head
snarewaves: New Butt
L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation: Boots on the Ground
Power Pants: Checkout Gurl
Esperanza: Decay
Yambag: Nerve Damage
Wax Head: Bug Doctor
Subjects: Stutterer
Dasgüt: Alcoholic
Evil Weevil: Jenny Is a Fig Wasp
National Photo Committee: Before the Feeling’s Gone
Dillinger Four: Don’t Happy Be Worry
Commitment: Pluto in Aquarius
Poison Ruïn: Lily of the Valley

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