punk this week: snooper, split system, the etters + 14 more

Hey, it’s see/saw’s weekly punk and rock’n’roll column Punk This Week. Well, kind of. To quote my friend Zach Mitchell, I have contracted the novel Gonervirus and don’t quite have it in me to write 2,000 words about new records + embed a bunch of pics. Sorry.

Instead, here’s a brief rundown of what’s new this week that’s really good. This sick day half-column is free. Punk This Week is usually only available to paid subscribers, who get a more robust version of this that’s over twice as long (in terms of word count) delivered to their inbox each week. see/saw should be back at full speed next week.

Subscribe to see/saw for $4/month or $40/year or barter; there’s a two-week free trial. There’s plenty of stuff if you subscribe for free, but if you pay a little money or barter, you’re supporting a fully independent music writing and broadcasting operation. Read some of the recent features, listen to the podcasts and radio shows. Rest assured, there’s a firehose of punk coverage just around the corner.

Snooper’s Worldwide is an outstanding document of why the hype is deeply warranted. This record is all propulsion and grit-via-glitch, taking some absolute hit songs from the recent past and tightening the screws impossibly further. It’s somehow “better” but not ”overpolished.” I’ve got an interview with them coming soon to see/saw, but this one deserves your time today.

Split System, Melbourne punk warriors who’ve been dropping killer singles all year, come through with one of the best punk tracks of 2025: “No Cops in Heaven.” For more anti-cop heaters, try Nashville’s Screen Star and their new EP Cop City.

A pretty big surprise this week comes from the Dutch band the Etters. Their new album is called The ETTERS maken je hartstikke DOOD! and it’s some pretty exceptional Rip Off Records worship. It’s amazing that rock’n’roll still exists in this shape in 2025. Not on Bandcamp, so you’ll have to consult your streamer of choice.

Bobby Cole is already back with a new tape from Total Con after dropping an unbelievable hardcore 7” earlier this year. This Whole World Is Gonna Pay kicks untold ass. Damn. It’s out on Brainrotter, which also dropped this absolutely menacing drone hardcore from Cardiff’s Shishu. Sickos who enjoy those two records should absolutely sink a half hour into the S.O.C. and Stunted Youth split LP on Unlawful Assembly. The grocery-themed D.C. hardcore band Saafewaay have a new six-track collection called price gun to my head, too, that rips.

Why Bother?’s Case Studies is the latest from the mysterious Iowa band with a long track record of great records on Feel It. SOOKS’ Taste the Leather is some fantastically lead-footed and heavy-fisted hardcore via hard rock. The German band Cold Summer has a really sick power goth record called Den Umständen entsprechend. It’s cold, but it pounds and howls. 

For more stomping and dour shit, try the UK band Sweet Fantasy’s new demo. The French dark hardcore band NOHZ is very much on a similiar wavelength to Zorn and other such warlocks on their excellent new album Slumber Between Rotten Walls.

The great Athens, Georgia label Hard Tack returns with a Halloween tape—a split between Peter and the Skeeters and Gnats. The Appalachian band Butter Swamp also have an eggy spooky season record out called Nightmare on Butter Street!. It’s not expressly a ghouls and goblins record, but Waylon Thornton’s new one Behold the Static Worm would sound great in a haunted house. So would Dru the Drifter’s The Creeper.

Also check out the new ones from ta2reeban (Beirut), G.A.Z.E. (Helsinki), High Heels (Lancaster), Paveway II (Phoenix), Big Modern (Sydney), xray xeroxx (Los Angeles), Lowballer (New York City), Choque (Santiago), Cluttered Grotto (California), Cool Guy Club (Perth), Jane & the Jaguars (Leipzig), Piss Rules (Brussels), and Muscle (Baltimore).

I missed it a couple weeks back, but my Deerhoof-pilled heart is absolutely loving the album grounders by Vancouver’s bananahaus.