13. Pyrex - Body (Total Punk Records)

This was a tremendous year for NYC's Pyrex--this LP hit in March & grabbed my attention so I wouldn't miss a follow-up EP in June or a phenomenal live tape in July. Their sound isn't exactly what I usually spring for, with garage-punk vocals & an approach that centers melody, but no matter what else came after this record this year, I just couldn't leave it off my list--if for no other reason than that these are the songs I've found myself humming while I do the dishes. There's this post-punk-y quality to the production, and every song is so different & so damn catchy. Pyrex is a good omen for New York's scene and the vitality of hardcore punk in general.

favorite track: Face Off

12. Nisemono - Nisemono (Toxic State Records)

More from NYC! This is about as short as I go for this list at 13 minutes & change, but absolutely zero time is wasted. This is true Japanese-American hardcore punk, mixing all the right stuff from both scenes. It's so fucking tight instrumentally--especially that drumming, holy shit--and the vocals are frantic in a way that feels barely-contained. I saw this band play with LiFE & this album was the full setlist--just as punchy and twice as powerful.

favorite track: Nikushimi

11. Habak - Mil orquídeas en medio del desierto (Alerta Antifascista/The Plague of Man/Ojala Me Muera)

Ten years after their debut, Tijuana's neocrust forerunners are still going strong. Since Lagrimas caught my ear a couple years ago, I've been trying to keep tabs on this strain of Spanish-language post-rock-inflected grind/crust, and I think I can safely say this is some of the best material to come out of it. Habak is as emo as they come, but they bring such an unmatched severity to the faster crust sections that even the purist in me is hooked. This LP is particularly well-paced, keeping the energy up even through slower sections & spacing out its hardest punches juuuust right to make them as crushing as possible. It's another triumph.

favorite track: MIl orquideas del desierto

10. Pisssniffers - Pisssniffers (Chaos & Anticonformity Records)

This was such a good year for raw noize d-beat, but a lot of it will be relegated to my "twelve-minutes-and-under" list, true to form for the genre. I'm ecstatic that this one weighs in at a whopping 17 minutes because it's one of the best I've heard since Physique's "Again." The production is pretty no-frills, but it really nails the whole Kawakami sound, especially the way those treble-y drums clip the noise into tight, rhythmic blasts.

favorite track: Horror

9. Gnostics - Revelation (Roachleg Records)

I might have actually been the first person to listen to this album--the band told me I was the first to buy the tape, and I listened to it just before it went up on bandcamp. As is often the case with debut albums, the production & recording aren't the tightest ever, but this is just such an unusual sound these days--old-school slow crust that strays into atmospheric sludge territory in a couple tracks. It wanders from Amebix to Gallhammer to Battle of Mice, but has a strong aesthetic keeping it cohesive. I adore the muddy guitar tones & the two vocalists call to mind a bunch of my crust faves. This band was such an unexpected and welcome discovery.

favorite track: Is Love Lost?

8. Sickness of Greed - All That's Before Us (Sore Mind/ Filth Holocaust Records)

Sore Mind is one of the best tape distros to ever do it, and releases like this are exactly why. As you might expect from a band named for a LiFE track, Sickness of Greed crashes like the crustiest, but they've got some Northern Europe in them too, particularly the vocals. This LP is 11 quick punchesthat are measurably heavier than your average hardcore record. My top "play-it-loud-as-fuck-while-driving" record this year.

favorite track: No Sanctuary

7. INDUSTRY - INDUSTRY (La Vida Es un Mus Discos)

Wow. This really draws from the sounds of every punk band with a chorus pedal I've ever loved--The Mob, Zygote, and of course Killing Joke--but if I had to pick just one point of comparison it's Exit-Stance. I truly think no one's done dark anarcho punk quite like them for 40 years--until INDUSTRY. Everything about this LP is bleak, but never dull, and it isn't an imitation either--just an extension of this lost art into the extremely apropos setting of the 21st century. The bass tone in particular really captures that primordial proto-industrial/post-punk sound, and they're paired with some of the best all-around guitar effects & production of the year.

favorite track: Minimize Interhuman Violence

6. Death Gasp - Death Gasp (Final Return Records)

I suspect stenchcore may be having a little renaissance in the 2020s, and Death Gasp is doing it exactly the way I like. It's got thrashy licks with none of thrash's corniness, gnarly death-metal guitar tones, and breakneck crustcore sections. Best of all, it's got SO much reverb. I love how unapologetically sour it all is--the rough vocals, the morbid cover art, all the octatonics. This is, to me, the very best kind of meeting of punk & metal that distills both into their purest, nastiest forms.

favorite track: Halls of the Dead

5. Contrast Attitude - Discharge Your Noise (WHY Records)

Contrast Attitude is one of the craziest sets I've ever seen live, and I could not have been more pumped for this album than I was after seeing them play in June. What struck me at that show--and strikes me every time I listen to this album--is just how much they're willing to push the crasher crust/d-beat formula in new directions. They undoubtedly channel the power of Discharge & their friends & former bandmates in Disclose, but there's no cloning going on here. The first track gets a little motörpunk with its heavy-metal sounding riff, and throughout the album we get little tastes of a retro love for burning spirits & old-school Japanese hardcore, but the whole thing comes across as anything but a rehash. It's thoughtfully executed and tight, tight, tight.

favorite track: Discharge Your Noise/The Last Moment

4. Möney - Hegemony (Chicken Attack/Icepicks at Dawn)

Egg punks Möney take a turn for the darker with this little post-punk album that totally blew me away from the first listen. It's short & sweet, but contains at least one contender for a "song of the year" for me. Something about the anarcho-punk-y covals on the title track combines into something so fresh with the crazy noise effects on the guitars. It still has a little of that warm, sweet tone that marks it as downstream from egg punk, but both lyrically & instrumentally, this feels like a brush with the reality of living in an immensely violent international system that's as alien as it is ubiquitous. I adore the noise track for its Foucauldian title as well as the crazy technical feat it represents to do something like this with pedals. All in all, this is the most danceable something can be while still feeling like a work from Tiqqun.

favorite track: Hegemony

3. MEM//BRANE - MEM//BRANE (District Six)

It felt amost anticlimactic when this dropped on January 1st because I knew then that it was going to be pretty high on this list. Even with all the good stenchcore this year, nothing quite scratched the same itch. The guitars are thoroughly death-y, but something about the vocals & the way the songs are structured puts it almost into blackened crust territory for me. The riffs all feel inspired by the old greats, but they're original and really, really memorable. We've also got a strong contender for "song of the year" here, and the subject matter of a lot of this album really strikes a chord with me, somber though it may be.

favorite track: In Lieu of Flowers

2. PSYCH-WAR - PSYCHOTIC WARMONGER (Sore Mind/Archaic Records)

Another Sore Mind release! This album is incredible because I enjoy it more every time I listen to it--and I've listened to it a lot. The sound is pretty directly inspired by "Scandinavian Jawbreaker"-era Anti Cimex, but witrh a solid scoop of motörpunk madness thrown in for good measure. Every song is more or less about the end of the world, and the whole thing feels like a high-speed rampage thru the wasteland as the bombs are falling. The guitars & drums are so locked in I feel like I'll die if I don't immediately start moving when this comes on. The production is remarkably crisp for a d-beat record, and without loising any of the sound's magnitude.

favorite track: Screams at the Sky

1. Subversive Rite - Apocalypse Zone (Acute Noise Manufacture)

For whatever reason, I didn't really get this one the first time I heard it. I guess listening to it as a new release didn't have me primed for what I was going to hear. But my second listen was eye-opening--the clean-ish vocals are such a breakthrough of old-school goodness. Of course it reminds me a little of Détente & a long list of other "crossover" greats, but this album really feels tapped in to that age of punk & extreme metal largely unhindered by subgenre labels. It all feels song-first, like it pulls from inspirations & invents as the song demands, not in order to imitate or show off. There's a amount of reverb & delay, something which seems to elude bands like this. Most importantly, these are just phenomenal songs, and they all pull together thematically along the lines of urgent resistance. EVEN THE HANDS OF STEEL MUST CRACK!