In what is shaping up to possibly become my favorite year for new music in decades, The Melmacs' EUPHANCHOLIA currently holds the position of my favorite album of 2026. That is hardly a surprise. I've been teasing the arrival of this LP since January, and all the advance singles were bona fide bangers. EUPHANCHOLIA, which officially released yesterday on Bakraufarfita Records and Wanda Records in Germany and the mighty Spaghetty Town Records here in the USA, more than lives up to what I promised in recent reviews.
This is now my 12th time reviewing The Melmacs, and my enthusiasm only grows with every write-up. There's no band out there that does a better job of marrying classic punk, power pop, and new wave influences in a way that sounds genuinely fresh and current. Beyond that, there's something special about The Melmacs. In times that have grown increasingly dark and cold, they are a lightning bolt of hope and love. They bring positive energy into a world that desperately needs it. They've made a record that acknowledges the seriousness of life but will ultimately put a smile on your face and add some skip to your step.
One trend I've noticed in the modern era of punk rock is bands getting better and better as they go along. That is certainly the case with The Melmacs. I liked the band's 2022 debut Good Advice enough to proclaim it one of my favorite albums of the 2020s. But that record was a mere warm-up for EUPHANCHOLIA, which finds The Melmacs making that big leap from very good band to truly great band. Even as the band's musical appeal has remained very much the same, the quality of its songwriting and the distinctiveness of its sound have been refined considerably. The Melmacs fully know who they are and what they want their music to be. The organ plays a larger role on this record, but the guitars don't take a back seat. Bimmi has become one the most likeable and expressive vocalists in the indie/punk universe, and Max's production on this release (with the help of Brown Barcella and Magnus Lindberg on the mixing and mastering side) is pretty much perfect. This is the kind of music I live for. It's catchy, powerful, and exciting, but it's also full of tremendous substance and comes straight from the heart.
It's no shocker that singles like "Lazy Hearts" and "Run for Your Life" are standout cuts. They were singles for a reason. But The Melmacs left plenty of killer tunes in reserve for us to enjoy when we finally dove into the full album. "The Tide is High" has me pumped to go out and live this day to its fullest. "Falling" is another vintage Melmacs high-energy, booty-shaking, earworm sing-along. I was blown away by "These Days," a song that sounds unlike anything the band has done before. It's a very sophisticated and modern-sounding pop-rock song that could legitimately be a hit if anyone in the music industry had a clue. Likewise, "Deadbeat" shows the band's command of pure pop with a bittersweet taste. Elsewhere, "Showdown" and "Lifetime" find the album taking a full-fury punk rock turn. The ballad "Crying My Heart Out" is a classic example of why The Melmacs are so amazing. It comes on sounding like jangly '60s pop, then seamlessly fast forwards into the '80s, and all the while Bimmi alternates between anguished spoken word ranting and the purest singing she's ever done. A song like this would not have been within The Melmacs' capabilities a few years ago. "Electric Night" puts a glam-bam exclamation mark on an extraordinary album.
On Good Advice, the Melmacs dispensed some tough love and sage guidance. With EUPHANCHOLIA, the vibe is a little different. These German sweethearts are here to lift you up. They've got your back and want to remind you that it's never too late to live your best life as long as you're still breathing. They're here to cheer you up and cheer you on. In tough and trying times, The Melmacs have brought us the album we need: a pep talk, a kick in the pants, and a giant hug all rolled into one urgent package of anthemic and infectious punk/pop/rock 'n' roll. When it comes to records that live at the intersection of punk rock and power pop, this is about as good as it gets. The Melmacs might remind you of bands you loved decades ago, but they aren't trying to sound like anyone but themselves. I might be guilty of hyperbole if I called them the best band in the world, so I'll show some proper restraint and contend that they at least need to be in the conversation.
Well here's something a little outside my usual box, but it really caught my attention. DISINTEL is a new synth-punk band out of Los Angeles, and its EP OUTLAW ELEKTRO is not for the faint of heart. I can roll with some Screamers, Suicide, Units, and Chrome quite often, and DISINTEL is doing a modern version of that style of music. In a good way, I'm hearing an industrial influence as well. But what really hits me hard are the lyrics. I won't spoil them for you since you can read them on Bandcamp. But man, these songs are dark and disturbing — painting a bleak portrait of a techno-fascist world that would seem dystopian if you didn't know it was the one we're already living in. This is brilliant, haunting stuff. And I love the way this band uses synthesizers in a way that's genuinely bold and creative. The synths aren't just there in place of guitars; they are the main driver of this band's nightmare-ish vision. This is synth-punk that qualifies as genuine art. "ESC.DEL.RTN" has me seriously shook. "The Future (I Can't Afford)" could not be any more in tune with the despairing zeitgeist of present day. This EP plays like a bizarre dream that would jolt me awake in a cold sweat, and I mean that as a high compliment. You won't hear anything else like this. If an electro-punk mind-fuck capable of chilling you to the bone has been on your wish list, DISINTEL is calling your name.
If there's one thing that moves me the most in music, it's when I can feel the genuine joy in it. And that's what came through instantly on Josephine Network's new album Hooked (out on Lollipop Records). From the opening note to the very end, you can feel the unadulterated enthusiasm and excitement that Josephine put into writing and recording these songs. Loud, catchy, and fun has always been the secret sauce for rock 'n' roll, and there's something absolutely perfect about the title of this album. I was instantly hooked, and you will be as well if you dig glam rock and power pop that take their cues from the '70s but still sound hot and fresh today.
Glam rock and classic power pop were always close cousins, and here Josephine brings them together in a way that could not sound more natural. There are sticky-sweet hooks all over the place, and there's plenty of swagger as well. And plain and simple, this album rocks. Put in on, turn it up, and forget about your troubles for 26 minutes. By the time you get to the end, it will be impossible to feel pessimistic about life. The title track would be a massive radio hit if they still played real rock 'n' roll on the radio. "All I'll Do" sounds like the best song Shoes never wrote. "Mary Jane Girls" is like the Beach Boys gone glam and so joyfully catchy that it ought to be illegal. Elsewhere, Josephine hits the sweet spot for bubblegum pop ("When Nobody's Home"), wham bam glam rock ("Kiss of the T" and "Babbling Fool"), and even some full-throttle riff rock boogie ("Revved Up Things"). "The Rockers" is pure rock 'n' roll with a pop heartbeat and the perfect closer for this absolute delight of an album. For this release, Josephine worked with producer Ryan Howe, who clearly gets what Josephine Network is all about. Hershguy and Nat Brower share drumming duties and totally match Josephine's energy with every beat. If an album that meets at the intersection of Nick Gilder, Big Star, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy sounds like something that would get your heart beating faster, Hooked just might have you obsessed. And how glorious is that cover art?
So ever since my friend Jay Castro and I tandem-posted on our favorite records of 1996, I've been on a huge '90s punk rock kick. I got to thinking about how much punk rock meant to me circa 1995-2000. And then I wondered if this was just some kind of "you had to be there" type situation or if the music I loved so much back then genuinely holds up today. So I pitched another tandem post to Jay: if a visitor from another planet approached you and asked you to explain why you loved punk rock in the '90s so much, which bands would you tell them to listen to? If you were trying to enlighten younger fans of punk music on some '90s bands to add to their music collections, which ones would you deem the most essential? And so here we are!
I know some people consider listicles to be the lowest form of online publishing, but Jay and I are not doing this for the purposes of generating clicks with hot takes. We wanted to reflect on some bands we've been listening to for 25-35 years that you might A) fondly remember, B) vaguely remember, or C) never have heard before. I'm not saying these are my ten favorite or the ten "greatest" or the ten most influential '90s punk bands. But these are the bands I'd tell you to check out first if you wanted to know why the punk rock music of that decade was so important to me. And I hope that some of you will check out some of these bands and like what you hear. I'm purposely leaving out certain bands like The Humpers, Beat Angels, and Bobbyteens that I would not become huge fans of until the early 2000s. I really wanted to focus on the bands I was digging in real time in the '90s.
Given that the combined number of extraterrestrials and Gen Z punk rock enthusiasts who read this blog is probably not much larger than zero, it's likely that this article is mainly an exercise in preaching to the choir. But, hey! Anything I can do to get people thinking and talking about '90s punk rock is a worthy endeavor.
Here we go (in no particular order)!
The Stitches
Jay and I have not revealed any of our selections to each other, but I know The Stitches will be on his list as well. If you were into throwback old school punk rock any time from the mid-to-late '90s, a new Stitches release was always a major, highly celebrated event. At the time, The Stitches may have been dismissed by some as '77 punk copyists. But to me, they helped define a new era of punk rock — one that took inspiration from the past but still felt like something new and different. The Stitches were a force of nature, and I'd put Michael Lohrman up there with the greatest punk vocalists of any era. By the time they finally got a proper album out the door in 2002, they had changed quite a bit stylistically. But their singles (later compiled on the Unzip My Baby LP) and their 8 x 12 EP are rightfully the stuff of legend. All those classic tracks still explode out of the speakers!
The Prostitutes
Obviously this is a band I've been championing from day one. After The Prostitutes imploded in 1998, Kevin McGovern rebooted the band numerous times with numerous different lineups in numerous locations, finally retiring the brand in 2022 with the release of the "last two" digital single. For the purposes of this feature, I'm focusing on the original iteration of The Prostitutes, which released the singles "Get Me Sick," "Living Wreck," and "Twenty-Two" plus the full-length album Can't Teach Kids Responsibility. When it comes to snotty punk rock with a genuine air of danger and post-adolescent rage, it simply doesn't get any better than this band. If you could buy only one punk collection from the '90s, I would urge you to go with The Prostitutes' Complete Recordings 1995-98.
Loli and the Chones
If I could name the single most essential punk rock album of the '90s, it would be P.S. We Hate You by Loli and the Chones. That record is punk rock perfection. Marrying the Angry Samoans and the Ramones to the budget rock ethos of the times, this trio took the idea of snotty, hate-fueled punk and somehow made it catchier and more fun than ever. A follow-up titled Total Fucking Genocide was pretty great as well and certainly lived up to its title!
Moral Crux
Like a lot of people, I first heard Moral Crux on the Lookout! Records Punk USA compilation. The band had been going strong since the '80s but seemed to really hit its stride in the '90s with the albums ...And Nothing But The Truth, I Was a Teenage Teenager, and Something More Dangerous. I cannot emphasize enough how important this band was to me — not just because of its urgent, politically-minded punk-pop anthems but also because of its influence on my punk rock education. Moral Crux was one of a couple of bands (along with Boris the Sprinkler) that was my gateway to first wave punk — to this day, my favorite music of my entire life. Some people may have found it odd that a band that a band so closely tied to the '90s pop-punk scene was writing songs about revolution, resistance, and the rejection of the status quo. But the magic of this band was that it demonstrated that punk music could have a message and melody. Political punk rock could make you think and inspire you to act and still be enjoyable to listen to. Seriously: why bother writing anthems if they're not going to be catchy?
The Muffs
Whether or not The Muffs qualified as a "punk" band is a matter of debate for the sort of people who love to debate about musical genres. I am not that sort of person. The Muffs were punk rock to me and also on my personal Mt. Rushmore of bands. Hearing them for the first time after their first album came out was a game-changer for me. If not a "pop-punk" band per se, they were certainly poppy and punky and the absolute antithesis of the miserable, overly serious rock music that was all the rage in the '90s. I loved their first two major label releases and could never figure out how why weren't massive commercial successes. But as I've re-explored their catalog this year, I've found that the less polished, more simply produced Happy Birthday To Me and Alert Today Alive Tomorrow sound even better to me now than they did back then. Kim Shattuck is remembered as perhaps the greatest screamer in all of rock 'n' roll, and that she was. But she was also a superb songwriter with a remarkable ear for melody and quite a flair for smart, often hilariously scathing lyrics. The world is far less awesome without her in it.
Dimestore Haloes
If you go way back with me, you know this was my band in the '90s. I took some flack (and deservedly so) for how fervently I sang this band's praises. Restraint was certainly not my forte in those days. But when I go back and listen to all those records and ask myself if I still love them, the answer is a resounding yes. Here was a band throwing the best parts of '77-style punk and early American rock 'n' roll into a blender with a splash of glam culture and a dash of beat literature. You still can't convince me that Thrill City Crime Control wasn't one of the best punk rock albums of the '90s. I still frequently blast the hell out of Revolt Into Style and Long Ride To Nowhere. Didn't I once predict I'd still be listening to these records 25 years later? Ha, I was low on my estimate!
Stiletto Boys
The Stiletto Boys were something remarkable in their day — a band with the edge and the snarl of the Dead Boys, the furious power of Radio Birdman, and the pure melodic joy of The Dickies. Their first EP 8-Track was one of the best 7-inch records of the decade. And from the raw attack of that debut, the band continued to refine its craft without ever going soft. The full-length albums Rockets And Bombs (1999) and Buzzbomb Sounds (aka A Company Of Wolves) (2000) still hit as hard as ever and serve as shining examples of what killer melodic punk rock ought to sound like. I would recommend starting with the compilation album When Wolves Emergeand working your way through the catalog, taking it all the way through 2013's overlooked masterpiece Liberator. RIP Sean Wolfe.
The Beltones
While their recorded output was limited to just a few releases, The Beltones in my book rate as a legendary punk rock band. Bill McFadden was absolutely the most underrated and underappreciated punk rock songwriter of his generation. He went deeper than almost all his peers, writing about things like battling trauma and wrestling with personal demons with a wisdom and honesty that was truly extraordinary for such a young man. Reviewers frequently likened The Beltones to Stiff Little Fingers, but that was really only a small part of the band's appeal. This was gritty, real music with heart and guts, and for my money, "My Old Man" b/w "Fuck You Anyway" (Just Add Water Records) was the best punk rock single of the '90s. With TKO Records, the band would go on to release the classic mini-album On Deaf Earsand the superb full-length Cheap Trinkets. While The Beltones have remained active as a live band, they have not released music in 25 years. TKO recently gave Cheap Trinkets the reissue treatment, so this might be a good time to revisit The Beltones.
The Dead End Cruisers
How could I do a recollection of '90s punk rock and NOT talk aboutDeep Six Holiday, the fantastic debut album by Austin, Texas's mighty Dead End Cruisers? The Cruisers, a '77-style punk band with a real-deal British vocalist, added a touch of glam and straight-up rock 'n' roll influence into the mix. They were also amazing live. While this band was short-lived, its legacy was profound. Friday Nights, the EP that preceded Deep Six Holiday, was a classic in its own right. Neil Curran was a brilliant lyricist and immensely underrated songwriter, and it always bummed me out that this band didn't stick around longer.
Jake and the Stiffs
I often talk of bands deserving more attention, but the lack of recognition for Jake and the Stiffs was downright criminal. Seriously, there were several significant record labels in the '90s that should have been heavily fined for not signing these old school punk power pop sensations from The First State. Their singles collection is a $6 download from Bandcamp, and that's the most fun you could have for so little money without breaking federal and state laws.
So that's my stroll down memory lane. Be sure to check out Jay's companion post over at Shock Treatment!
Palmyra Delran, the queen of trash pop and America's most beloved radio personality, is back with a new single with her band The Doppel Gang. Out on Wicked Cool Records, "Hold Tight!" is a cover of a 1966 single by UK swingers Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. This track finds Delran (The Friggs, Pink Slip Daddy, The Coolies) in vintage form. She and her bandmates put their own twist on this oldie-but-goodie. Expect nothing more and nothing less than thumping and exuberant garage rock that will have you bouncing around like a maniac and singing that chorus all day long. What a fun, crackling cut! You may recall that Beebe Gallini did a killer version of this same song on its LPBegged, Borrowed and Stealed, and I am thrilled to live in a world where we can have dueling covers of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. Isn't rock 'n' roll the best?
I'm a little late to catch the Music City train, but this was a review that I knew I'd have to write sooner rather than later. If I can't stop listening to a record, surely that's something I need to be talking about here. Welcome To Music City is the many-years-in-the-making full-length debut from Conor Lumsden's solo-ish project Music City. I've taken my time to let this record fully sink in, and I must say that I don't think pop music could ever get much better than this.
Having already proven himself as a master of the three-chord, punk-influenced brand of power pop with The Number Ones, Lumsden swings to the other end of the spectrum with Music City: more genteel & sophisticated guitar pop that marries '70s AM radio sounds to early '90s left of the dial vibes. The casual listener will hear echoes of Big Star and Teenage Fanclub, but Lumsden's influences on this record go all the way from the early days of rock 'n' roll through classic pop-rock to contemporary indie/alternative stuff. He has taken all this music he has loved in his life and crafted a sound that's uniquely and distinctly his. His melodies are majestic, and his lyrics have a way of telling a story without deliberately being conceptual. He describes Welcome To Music City as an album about "the peaks and troughs of just trying to get by, in love, against the outside forces, or the ones inside your own head." That's powerful, relatable stuff. As much as I love The Number Ones, I'm delighted to hear Lumsden make a record that doesn't have to conform to the limitations of genre. He has a beautiful, soulful voice, and he has brought us a pop record that's far more about finesse than power.
This isn't to say that Welcome To Music City is a mellow ride all the way through. "Common Sense" is a full-blown rocker with an absolutely giant hook. If you made a playlist of classic power pop songs from the '70s, "When the Day Goes By" would fit right in. "Pretty Feelings" could almost be an early '80s radio hit. But the beauty of this record is that Lumsden is serving no masters beyond his own artistic inspiration. He can hit you with magnificent pure pop songs like "It's Alright" and a "A Matter of Time," but he can also produce a gorgeous ballad like "Photograph" or a '70s soft rock throwback like "Something's On Your Mind" that you'll like every bit as much. It can take a long time for a songwriter to reach the point where the detours from their typical style are something you look forward to as opposed to something you tolerate. But Lumsden has fully arrived in that place. There are no "must-skip" tracks on Welcome To Music City. Every song is there to be experienced and savored.
With some help from some remarkable musicians (such as Evan Walsh, Daniel Fox, Fiachra Mac Oireachtai, Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh, Niall Murphy, and Cian Nugent) and some special guest stars (Sheer Mag's Tina Halladay and Hart Seeley), Conor Lumsden has finally brought into the world the songs that he's been dreaming up and writing for years. At a time when people wrongly dismiss new music as nothing more than more "content" vying for our time and attention, Welcome To Music City is a reminder why music exists. This a man's soul captured on tape and preserved for an eternity so that others' souls can be enriched. These are beautiful and masterfully crafted songs that breathe new life into the world of pop music and the world in general. What could be better?
We are getting closer and closer to the arrival of the second album from The Sleeveens, and I can't deny I'm getting super-pumped. My god, this band is everything! With National Anthem slated to release May 1st on Goner Records, we have been treated to a second advance single. And this thing is coming in hot! "If I Was a Casual" was the rousing punk anthem we expected from The Sleeveens, and now "I Was Born On A Saturday Night" is the fiery and furious rocker that perfectly follows it — both as a single and on the album tracklist as well. Here Stef and the gang lay the pedal to the medal and just rip it hard and fast. This is blistering garage rock 'n' roll with a righteous indignation that's palpable in the lyrics, vocals, and music itself. Do you want to hear a band playing music like it means it? Well The Sleevens mean it with every fiber of their being. This is the way you start an album! As for the rest of it, our wait will soon be over. Get your pre-order in while the vinyl is still available!
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