Hi there. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Julie River, associate editor at New Noise and writer of the Today’s New Noise column. 2024 was a great year for music, not to mention an important one for me personally. I finally moved into a position where I could live solely off my writing now that I work as an associate editor for three different publications. I really wanted to make sure to get my thoughts down on my top albums of the year, but unfortunately, my list comes a little late after having a very busy few months, combined with the fact that I caught whooping cough and COVID back to back in December. Pro tip: try not to do that; it’s not fun. Then my computer died, and I lost all the work I had already done on my list. So, my apologies for not getting this out before the year’s end, but I give you my take on the greatest records to be released in 2024.
I’ve vaguely paid attention to MakeWar over the years, but this year I was thrown into reviewing the album at the last minute and I absolutely fell in love with this record. With the powerful, soaring melodies and the complex post-hardcore approach, it’s art punk at its absolute finest, lying somewhere between melodic pop-punk and emo. MakeWar are hardly newcomers to the scene, but they make the kind of music that usually takes a while to start being appreciated by the punk scene. Given time, I think people are going to start looking back on MakeWar as one of the most underappreciated artists of this era.
Favorite Track: “P.A.N.”
I’m a broken record about this, but I don’t love it when people refer to Mean Jeans as a “dumb” band. Sure, Billy Jeans told me in an interview this year that the band operates on the principle of “no idea is too stupid,” but there’s a certain cleverness that’s required to pull off that intentionally stupid shtick. Add to that the fact that Blasted is the closest Mean Jeans has ever come to writing a true concept album as it serves as both a love-letter to and a critique of pop-punk, and you’ve got an album that’s much smarter than anyone’s going to give it credit for. The Ramonescore veterans have been hanging around for a while on Fat Wreck, and Blasted demonstrates, in all of its hilarious microfocus, why the band has so much staying power. After all, who else could come up with songs about hanging out in a Taco Bell parking lot or tributes to obscure characters from one of the Friday the 13th sequels? Nobody but Mean Jeans.
Favorite Track: “Look What Punk’s Done to You”
One of the funniest moments of working for New Noise this year came when our owner had to argue with Meta’s customer service and explain to them that New Noise, as a company, was trying to sell a magazine with a band called Pissed Jeans on the cover and that we were not trying to sell actual pissed jeans. I admit that I haven’t been following Pissed Jeans’ whole career and this is the first time I’ve really checked out one of their albums, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Pissed Jeans manages to pull off funny and serious songs with equal skill all the while backing them up with a raging hardcore soundtrack. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for what Pissed Jeans does next.
Favorite Track: “Everywhere is Bad”
This is one of the albums I discovered after our writer Nick Senior covered the up-and-coming queer Irish post-hardcore band in one of our print issues this year. With all the complexity and power that comes with post-hardcore, Sprints also manage to pull off some outstanding pop hooks that are beyond what you normally find in the post-hardcore genre. As this is one of the very few debut albums to make my list, you can be sure that Sprints is going to be a band to look out for in the future because they’re going places.
Favorite Track: “Literary Mind”
Death Lens is a band that I fell in love with after being assigned to write a news article about them. I was so enamored with their particular brand of synth-heavy post-hardcore. I volunteered to interview them after that, and I was fascinated by their philosophy of completely revamping their sound every few years. It’s how they transformed themselves from an instrumental surf-rock band to a much more complex post-hardcore band with vocals, and they seem to pull off every style with equal success. With this being their debut on the legendary punk label Epitaph, it’s likely this band is going to gain even more notoriety in the coming years.
Favorite Track: “Cold World”
One of my proudest moments of working at New Noise this year was getting the chance to interview Chuck Ragan, co-frontman of one of my favorite bands, Hot Water Music. The interview was probably one of the longest ones I ever conducted, and it was a fascinating conversation that I was absolutely honored to be a part of. Vows is the album that celebrates the band’s 30th anniversary and, with all the original members of the band plus one they added recently, the band has shown a remarkable evolution over three decades and really refined their sound, making Vows one of the best albums of their career. The fact that it features guest appearances from big names such as Thrice, Turnstile, and The Interrupters is just the icing on an already delicious cake.
Favorite Track: “Menace”
Another one of my proudest moments of working at New Noise this year was the opportunity to interview one of my absolute heroines, the woman who inspired me to come out as a trans woman, the great Laura Jane Grace herself. I got to thank her for her inspiration and even recommended she check out the video I made of a poem I wrote as a tribute to her, although I don’t know if she actually watched it. On Hole in my Head, Grace finds herself returning to the style that Against Me! was using on their last album before their dissolution while, at the same time, not abandoning the style she had been evolving with her solo career. The result is a dynamic album that demonstrates that, band or no band, Laura Jane Grace is always a force to be reckoned with.
Favorite Track: “Punk Rock in Basements”
Easily one of the best ska albums of the year, The Calamatix returns to a classic first-wave ska style while still demonstrating modern sensibilities. Raylin Joy proves herself to be one of the most powerful and dynamic singers in the entire genre, and the album finds so many ways to demonstrate that ska isn’t a one-note genre. This album really brings out the many different variations that classic ska can produce, and it demonstrates them all with equal levels of talent. Another one of the few debuts on my list, this band already debuted on Hellcat Records, a subsidiary of Epitaph, demonstrating that they’re already becoming a big deal in ska.
Favorite Track: “Still Rudy”
The latest chapter in Destroy Boys’ sonic evolution sees the band at their most eclectic and diverse version of their classic sound. The band’s lyrics demonstrate a modern progressive politics that’s a far cry from early punk’s obsession with a very over-simplified misunderstanding of what anarchism is. Rather, Destroy Boys understand the problems of the modern world and, while not necessarily offering solutions, they at least offer a catharsis for modern anxieties. Of particular interest to me as a trans woman is Alexia Roditis’ exploration of gender dysphoria and gender identity, which is an essential and very important topic right now. As Destroy Boys become a bigger and bigger name, it’s just because they’re getting better as musicians and becoming more relevant over time.
Favorite Track: “Boyfeel”
I appreciate why people went crazy over Knocked Loose this year, and I’m really glad they’re getting the mainstream exposure that hard rock hasn’t really gotten in a long time. But, for my money, Candy’s It’s Inside You did pretty much everything that Knocked Loose’s You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To and did it better. The combination of hardcore and electronic elements made for one of the most vital and exciting albums of this year, and definitely has me excited to see what Candy does next.
Favorite Track: “Love Like Snow”
Rock isn’t my only love. Sometimes I really enjoy a good hip-hop album, too. And this year my favorite underground rap album was definitely Revival Season’s Golden Age of Self-Snitching. With catchy songs that don’t show any of the big, flashy trappings of mainstream hip-hop, it’s an album that’s flown under the radar this year a little more than it should have. But give it time, because I feel like Revival Season are going to become a name in the hip-hop underground.
Favorite Track: “Everybody”
For The Cure’s particular style of post-punk, there’s a thin line between absolute genius and pretentious nonsense. Unfortunately, this legendary band has found themselves on the wrong side of that thin line for the better part of the 21st century. But on Songs of a Lost World, we finally get an album that stands up next to The Cure’s classics from the ‘70s and ‘80s. Considering that The Cure have announced plans to retire in about four years, it’s good to see Robert Smith winding down his career on a high note.
Favorite Track: “And Nothing is Forever”
Another hip-hop artists on my list, Kendrick Lamar demonstrates his versatility once again as every single album he puts out manages to be wildly different than the one before it. Following the morose Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in 2022, GNX is a breath of fresh air and an infusion of new energy. With his sly drawl and complex rhymes, GNX is one of his best albums, and possibly just the most outright fun album he’s ever put out. Setting him up for his big headlining performance at the Super Bowl next month, this surprise album turned out to be a pleasant surprise indeed.
Favorite Track: “Squabble Up”
I hadn’t been paying very close attention to Cursive for the past decade or so, but when the opportunity came up to interview Tim Kasher I jumped at the chance. So that meant checking in on Cursive for the first time in a while and, I’m happy to say, they’re still on the top of their game. Devourer is a big, hard-rockin’, shoegazin’, indie powerhouse of an album that shows Kasher’s usual cynicism in full force. Already a legend amongst indie crowds, Cursive shows that they have no intention of resting on their laurels 30 years into their career.
Favorite Track: “Botch Job”
With all due respect to Hellcat and Ska Punk International, Bad Time Records are consistently putting out the best records in ska year after year. With the first release from self-proclaimed bubblegum ska act Half Past Two to appear on Bad Time, frontwoman Tara Hahn’s vocals and lyrics absolutely shine on this album. And, amidst all of the catchy pop hooks, Hahn manages to weave in lyrics on important topics like dismantling rape culture and anarchistic concepts of restructuring society. While Half Past Two has been around for a while, they seem to finally be coming into their own in a big way as they jump on board the burgeoning New Tone ska movement. Expect even bigger things to come from this already veteran band in the future.
Favorite Track: “Barrier For Entry”
I always say that my absolute favorite kind of music is pop-punk that’s also, somehow, experimental. That’s a hard balance to pull off because pop, by definition, doesn’t lend itself to a lot of experimentation. Still, there are bands like Direct Hit! or The Blood Brothers who pull off some really bizarre combinations with pop-punk as the base. Origami Angel’s particular brand of mathy pop-punk makes for some really compelling listening, and Feeling Not Found might be the most refined their style has ever been. Sometimes moving from lighthearted pop to growling metal within the span of a few seconds, the eclectic mix always ends on an emotional note that really resonates. This is already a band well on the rise, and I expect even bigger things out of them in years to come.
Favorite Track: “Feeling Not Found”
New Noise managing editor Addison Herron-Wheeler has been singing me the praises of Amyl and the Sniffers for ages and so I finally took the opportunity to check out their latest release this year. Boy was I impressed! Frontwoman Amy Taylor’s powerhouse feminist lyrics are perfectly accompanied by a series of perfect pop hooks, jangly guitars, and electrifying punk energy. Australia has really been knocking it out of the park with punk bands lately, and Amyl and the Sniffers might just be the best band to come from Down Under since The Living End. A long-time cult favorite who seems to be exploding into the spotlight this year, their newfound fame is well deserved and is likely to only keep getting bigger over time.
Favorite Track: “U Should Not Be Doing That”
Nobody expects me, a leftist transgender woman, to be an Eminem fan. I’ve written elsewhere about how I justify my love of Eminem with his perceived queerphobia which, frankly, I think is overstated and severely misunderstood. While Eminem has a lot of offensive things to say on this album, it’s all in service of a powerful redemption story where he takes on the alter-ego he adopted in the ‘90s and finds that he may have accidentally become the man he pretended to be all these years. Still, the album sees him wanting to change, especially with his sobriety at stake, and, in the end, I don’t think the album is trying to say that Eminem agrees with everything he says. Whether you agree with the use of that gimmick or not, it makes for Eminem’s most complete statement as an artist in his long and infamous career.
Favorite Track: “Toby”
Bright Eyes’ reunion continues on with the second album since they got back together, and it demonstrates that the band is as clever and innovative as they’ve ever been. More than that, the often cynical band finds a newfound optimism that’s almost foreign to them as a band, making for a delightful change of pace in a band that’s pushing the three decade mark. Conor Oberst once again demonstrates that he is one of the best lyricists of his or any other generation. While Bright Eyes has played a lot of different types of music over the years, Five Dice, All Threes sees them doing what they do best: indie folk that perfectly contrasts Oberst’s dark poetry.
Favorite Track: “Bells and Whistles”
It almost feels cliched to pick the highest-selling punk band of all time for my number one pick, but I honestly cannot deny that this was my favorite record of the year, not to mention Green Day’s finest work in 20 years. And that’s coming from maybe the only person in the world that didn’t hate Father of All Motherfuckers, but even still, Saviors exceeds it by miles. The band have been really struggling to find their voice again since the colossal success of American Idiot in 2004 and, now, two decades later they have finally put out their first album since American Idiot that’s really worthy of being mentioned in the same conversation as their albums from the ‘90s and early 2000s. Tackling extremely relevant subject matter for the 2020s, including Billie Joe Armstrong confidently reasserting his bisexuality after coming out 30 years ago, there is no other album that encapsulates 2024 better than Saviors.
Favorite Track: “Bobby Sox”
