10 Best Punk & Emo Songs of August 2025

In Defense of the Genre is a column on BrooklynVegan about punk, pop punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, ska-punk, and more, including and often especially the bands and albums and subgenres that weren’t always taken so seriously.

As we speak, BrooklynVegan is in the midst of rolling out a video series in which I discuss 20 emo (and emo-adjacent) albums that turn 20 this year, with one a day until the countdown ends on September 6. Make sure you’re following us on Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and/or Facebook to see each new video each day, and you can find the full countdown so far at the #20EmoAlbumsAt20 hashtag on all of those platforms.

For more punk-related features from August, we also put up an interview with Pool Kids about their new album Easier Said Than Done, a podcast interview with Moving Mountains about their first album in 12 years and future plans, and we had Chance Smith from Kerosene Heights name his 5 favorite screamo records.

Our August album reviews include The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, Hot Mulligan, Hayley Williams, The Armed, End It, Kerosene Heights, Rise Against, JER, Feel The Pain, Big Laugh, The Casket Lottery, and Deftones.

We also launched some new exclusive vinyl, including upcoming albums from Militarie Gun, The Acacia Strain, and Biohazard; a new “ocean” vinyl variant of Descendents’ Milo Goes To College; and more. Also, the new 20th anniversary edition of Minus The Bear’s Menos El Oso just came out and our exclusive coke green vinyl variant is still available.

Head below for my picks of the 10 best songs of August that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.

Algernon Cadwallader – “Hawk”

For all the comparisons to Kinsella bands that Algernon Cadwallader were met with throughout their initial six-year run, the parallels now extend beyond the music. Like Cap’n Jazz and American Football, the legend of Algernon Cadwallader grew and grew in the years following their abrupt breakup. They were “emo revival” in the truest sense–with a sound that revived the mathy, yelpy, Midwest-style version of emo at a time when bands of that ilk had all but disappeared–and they called it quits before Emo Revival became a trendpiece subject that the mainstream music press picked up on. Despite unabashedly borrowing ideas from bands like Cap’n Jazz, Algernon Cadwallader became just as important and influential as Cap’n Jazz. So many of the Midwest-style emo bands that popped up over the past 10 or so years would tell you that they’re even more directly informed by Algernon than by bands with members whose last name is Kinsella.

Algernon never seemed to do any of the things that bands usually do when they’re trying to “make it”; they became the stuff of legend by keeping it as real as they did when they were playing in basements to 30 people. So it makes sense that, now that they’re reunited and regularly playing to thousands, the first single off their first album in 14 years sounds like the same band we heard on Some Kind of Cadwallader. From the sweetly melodic twinkly guitar work to Peter Helmis’ slightly-off-key yelps, “Hawk” feels like the early days of Algernon Cadwallader all over again. It sounds as genuine and carefree as this band always has. The only difference is that there’s a newfound sense of reflection that can only come from being in the game as long as the members of this band have. As Peter sings on this track, “How much of our lives did we spend kicking out the jams?”

Good Luck – “Into The Void”

It’s been an insane month to be a fan of emo revival OGs because not only did Algernon Cadwallader announce their first album in 14 years, so did Good Luck, and theirs was actually recorded with Algernon’s Joe Reinhart. (Not to mention Empire! Empire! announced a reunion tour.) Good Luck never got as popular as Algernon, but they were just as important to the early days of emo revival, and they influenced a lot of the scene’s bigger bands (like The Hotelier, The Sidekicks, and their longtime peer Jeff Rosenstock, the last of whom penned the bio for their new album Big Dreams, Mister and said it “exists in the rarified air of Superchunk’s fantastic post-hibernation record Majesty Shredding and not those ‘why would they do this?’ reunion records of beloved bands whomst shall go unnamed”). Good Luck also stood out because they couldn’t really be tied down to one genre or scene. They were part of emo revival, but they were also part of the folk punk scene and their music could just as easily be called power pop or indie rock. On new single “Into The Void,” this is all just as true as it was on Good Luck’s classic 2008 debut album Into Lake Griffy. It kicks off with an intro that marries a Midwest emo riff to a baroque-indie arrangement that would fit on a Vampire Weekend album, and then Ginger Alford and Matty Pop Chart’s voices enter with the same harmonious chemistry that they had 17 years ago. The song has the same charm that classic Good Luck had, and it also reinforces how influential and ahead-of-their-time this band was. So many bands that have toed the indie/emo line over the past 15 years owe a direct or indirect debt to Good Luck, and this new Good Luck song sounds as fresh as all the music of this kind that came in Good Luck’s wake.

Joyce Manor – “All My Friends Are So Depressed”

Joyce Manor never broke up, so no comeback narrative here, but they’re another band whose career is inextricably tied to Algernon Cadwallader’s who released a great new song this month. “All My Friends Are So Depressed,” which was produced by Joyce Manor’s longtime Epitaph label boss Brett Gurewitz, leans harder into the band’s love of Smiths-y jangle pop more than any Joyce Manor song has since 2012’s “Bride of Usher,” and they’re even better at it now than they were back then. There’s also a little cowpunk/psychobilly in the mix (they cited Tiger Army and X as influences on this song too), and Barry Johnson says the lyrics are “kind of my take on what I imagine Lana Del Rey lyrics are like. Instead of icy, detached cool 50’s Americana, it’s all dirty shag carpet, bong rips, Peter Frampton Comes Alive, key lime pie and suicidal ideations.” Do I need to keep selling you on this?

Aren’t We Amphibians – “Dunce Hat”

Keeping the Algernon theme going, one of the countless newer Midwest-style emo bands influenced by Algernon that have been rising up lately is Aren’t We Amphibians. They kicked this year off with a four-way split with awakebutstillinbed, Your Arms Are My Cocoon, and California Cousins, and now they’re set to release their debut album Parade! Parade! in September. First single “Dunce Hat” is a catchy, yelpy, noodly, Midwest-style emo banger that stands tall next to all the bands that paved the way for them.

TRSH – “Dusty”

More new-school Midwest emo dropped this month from TRSH, whose new album String Theory drops in September via Wax Bodega. “Dusty” has its fair share of twinkle riffs, but it also has a little more screamy post-hardcore in its DNA than the other emo we’ve talked about so far and TRSH are very good at blending those two things and more together. This sounds like it would’ve gone off at a basement show in 1996, or in 2008. And it’d go off at one in 2025 too if TRSH weren’t already too big to be playing them.

Public Opinion – “Laughing Academy” (ft. Patrick Kindlon of Drug Church)

Moving out of emo and into hardcore-informed alt-rock (or “hardcore-adjacent,” if you will) with the latest from Public Opinion. The Denver band emerged as one of the most promising new bands in this space with the hardcore-meets-aughts-indie-rock formula of their 2022 EP Modern Convenience and 2024 LP Painted On Smile, and with “Laughing Academy” (off their first EP for SideOneDummy), they branch out from that formula into territory that’s much harder to sum up as X meets Y. It’s cleaner and catchier than anything they released prior, and it finds vocalist Kevin Hart pushing his knack for sweet melodies to the forefront more than ever before. Keeping things hardcore-adjacent is a guest verse from Patrick Kindlon of Drug Church, whose gritty shouts fit the song perfectly and whose fans should definitely be listening to Public Opinion. (Patrick also played with Kevin in the short-lived band Sex With A Terrorist, which also included Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton, who produced Modern Convenience and Painted On Smile. And you can catch Public Opinion on tour with Militarie Gun this fall.)

Secret World – “Good Faith” (ft. Shogun of Royal Headache)

Another very good hardcore/alt-rock crossover song with a killer guest verse this month came in the form of “Good Faith,” the new single off the upcoming sophomore EP from Secret World. The band is basically a supergroup of Australian hardcore musicians (who play or played in Speed, Downside, Hand of Mercy, Hellions, and Beerwolf), and I previously called their debut EP Guilt Is Good “the Australian hardcore scene’s answer to bands like Militarie Gun, Drug Church, and High Vis,” the last of whom tapped them to open select dates on their upcoming North American tour. With new single “Good Faith,” they take the catchiness and the cleanliness to a new level. You can still feel the band’s hardcore roots, but these jangly guitars and anthemic hooks (including the sweetly sung second verse by the great Shogun of Royal Headache/Antenna/Finnogun’s Wake) are almost more like The Gaslight Anthem, The Menzingers, or even the Gin Blossoms than anything on the grittier EP that Secret World released less than a year ago. It feels like a massive step up and you love to see that sort of thing happening this quickly.

Militarie Gun – “B A D I D E A”

Last hardcore/alt-rock track for now but definitely not least: the aforementioned Militarie Gun announced their new album God Save the Gun this past month and it features last year’s very catchy, Weezer-y “Thought You Were Waving,” along with a much different kind of Militarie Gun song, “B A D I D E A.” It’s almost closer to IDLES than to what this band was known for previously, and even if the spelled-out chorus didn’t have cheerleader-style letter cards in the music video this would sound like something that’s built to be shouted in stadiums.

We’ve also got an exclusive translucent blue vinyl variant of Militarie Gun’s new album up for pre-order.

Feel The Pain – “Living Proof”

Speaking of the Australian hardcore scene, one of my favorite hardcore debut EPs this year came from Australia’s Feel The Pain, who are on Last Ride Records (like Secret World and Speed) and who recently did their first-ever national tour opening for Speed. Like Speed (and Drain, who happen to have an album and song with the same name as this Feel The Pain song), Feel The Pain know how to make ass-kicking metallic hardcore that balances out its tough mob mentality with good clean fun. “Living Proof,” which opens the EP, is their most anthemic song to date. It’s a song you’ll be shouting along to after just a couple listens.

Massa Nera – “Mechanical Sunrise”

Wrapping this list up with some screamo. Massa Nera’s upcoming third album The Emptiness of All Things finds the NJ band addressing the ongoing climate crisis, and they call this song in particular “our comment on greenwashing, the neoliberal delusion of ‘green growth,’ and the increasingly absurd idea that we can innovate our way out of any problem, no matter how seemingly insurmountable said problem might be.” It’s got some chaotic screamo, some dance-punk, some dramatic spoken word, and more, and it’s some of Massa Nera’s most intense work to date.

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In an effort to cover as many bands as possible, I try to just do one single per album cycle in these monthly roundups, so catch up on previous months’ lists for even more:

* Best Songs of July

* Best Songs of June

* Best Songs of May

* Best Songs of April

* Best Songs of March

* Best Songs of February

* Best Songs of January

For even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2025.

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Read past and future editions of ‘In Defense of the Genre’ here.

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