punk this week: dark thoughts, knowso, snooper + 17 more
Bandcamp Friday means a heap of outstanding punk records, but only one sounds like revolution.
It’s Punk This Week—see/saw’s weekly punk and rock'n'roll recommendations column—during a Bandcamp Friday. I wrote way too many blurbs because there are way too many good punk records out today. We got the return of Dark Thoughts, two exceptional new records from Sorry State, a stellar lead single from Snooper, a revolution-citing jangle pop benefit comp, plus barn burners from the UK, Australia, Indonesia, Chile, Japan, and Cleveland.
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Dark Thoughts: Highway to the End [Stupid Bag/Drunken Sailor]
The latest from Philadelphia’s Dark Thoughts does not reinvent the wheel, thank Christ. It’s power chord punk rock that sounds like 100 other songs you’ve heard, and somehow, none of them. The best part of Highway to the End is how these songs whip by, some at a minute or less, and bleed right into the next one. All but one song begins pretty much exactly the same way, and the other one is “Please Don’t Be Lonesome,” a spare ballad (eventually slathered in their tried-and-true distortion attack). They ease off just long enough for you to lean in—a springboard into the next moments of frenzy. Shit rules.
