Best Punk & Emo Songs of Summer 2026 So Far

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.

Welcome back to In Defense of the Genre! My column about punk, emo, hardcore, and other adjacent styles of music went on hiatus as I was busying welcoming my son into the world, but it’s back baby, and I’m playing catch-up so this particular edition is bigger than ever. I usually round up my 10 favorite punk/emo/etc songs of the past month, and I’m making up for lost time with 15 songs from July and late June, including some later-in-the-album-rollout singles from albums I missed the chance to hype back in May. There is so much good music ahead, so keep reading.

Before I get to the new songs, rest in peace to Lou Koller of Sick Of It All. It’s no surprise that tributes poured in to the NYHC legend from just about every familiar face in the NYHC scene but also from massive bands like Rancid, AFI, Rise Against, Hatebreed, Korn, NOFX, and Dashboard Confessional. SOIA were some of the first true lifers of hardcore–a genre/community that saw so many of the band’s peers and forebears releasing one or two albums and then calling it quits–and they spread the gospel of punk and hardcore everywhere they went as they toured relentlessly for decades. They inspired so many bands and they remained an absolute force on stage and on albums up until the very end. If you’ve never hopped aboard the Sick Of It All train before, do it now. They truly were built to last.

In other news, Joyce Manor are headlining an arena! (They did play the Long Beach Arena in the past but this is the Kia Forum! Wow!) Have Heart are reuniting again. Set Your Goals are celebrating the 20th anniversary of Mutiny! with their first tour in years and it’s loaded with great openers. You know what else has great openers? That insane Turnstile tour that starts in September. Members of Green Day, blink-182, Rancid, and more are doing a Ramones tribute show at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in August. We talked about recent NYC shows from First Day Back and American Football on BV Weekly. The sorta-related-to-First-Day-Back band Racecourse are heading East soon too.

And, I talked about the best emo albums of the first half of 2026 in this video:

I recently reviewed albums by The Menzingers, Quicksand, No Pressure, Piebald, Snag, Hew (mem Football, etc), Soft Curse (mem State Faults), No Cure, The Ritornello Form, Quiet Fear, Tiny Voices, Lenny Kaye, Fuming Mouth, and more.

And in the BV shop, we’ve got new exclusive vinyl, including multiple Descendents reissues, some Thursday, the first-ever vinyl release of Save Ferris’ It Means Everything, PUP’s The Dream Is Over, Superheaven’s Ours Is Chrome, Gogol Bordello’s Gypsy Punks, Between the Buried and Me’s Colors_LIVE, the upcoming Citizen album, the new Quicksand album, the new Joyce Manor album, and more.

Head below for my picks of the 15 best songs of July and late June that fall somewhere under the punk umbrella, in no particular order.

Initiate – “Numb the Pain”

I’ve said before that Initiate’s 2023 album Cerebral Circus scratches an itch that hasn’t been scratched this effectively since the early days of Touché Amoré/La Dispute/Pianos Become the Teeth/etc, a heavy/beautiful mix of hardcore and post-hardcore that’s as casually genre-defying as it is passionately intense. New single “Numb the Pain” off the band’s first EP for Blue Grape, With Love // With Rage, picks right up where Initiate left off, with throat-shreddingly emotive screams, deeply personal themes, and a touch of clean vocals set to a backdrop of distorted chugs, acoustic strums, and ethereal soundscapes.

Snag – “Juneberry”

The centerpiece of Milwaukee screamo band Snag’s third album All The Cages Holding Us Will One Day Turn To Dust isn’t screamo at all. “Juneberry” is a melodic emo/post-rock/chamber pop hybrid with horns, pedal steel, and communal group singing that sounds like something you could picture The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die doing in the Whenever, If Ever / Harmlessness era. It’s a reprieve from Snag’s screamo fury yet even more overwhelming than so many of their more aggressive songs. It’s also one of the best songs of its kind released in recent memory.

Index – “Fractured”

The impactful Philly punk band Control Top faded away a few years after releasing their great 2019 debut album Covert Contracts, but now two thirds of the band’s lineup from that album are playing as a duo called Index. Fractured” off the duo’s upcoming Arthur Rizk-produced debut LP Vis Inertiae is a chaotic, electronics-infused post-hardcore song that reminds me more of one of Justin Pearson‘s projects than of Control Top’s punk/post-punk crossover, and it’s a real riot.

The Ritornello Form – “This Is Our Timely Outfit”

In case you haven’t heard, second wave emo is back (again), and Febuary-related Vegas band The Ritornello Form’s Majority Rule instantly became one of the new wave’s most talked-about debut albums after dropping the Sunday before the Fourth of July. (Why do good emo albums always come out on weird release dates?) There’s a good amount of musical ground covered throughout the album’s nine songs, and one clear highlight is track two, “This Is Our Timely Outfit.” It kinda sounds like a cross between the melodic ’90s stuff (think Static Prevails, Four Minute Mile) and the very early 2000s stuff (think Further Seems Forever), and if you have any hang-ups about how explicitly retro it sounds, those disappear once the song’s explosive energy takes over.

Aeiou – “Supreme & Bowery”

Aeiou are another very promising band bringing back second wave emo, and shoutout to my friend Eli Enis for introducing me to them just days before they opened for The Ritornello Form in NYC. They’re NYC locals (who share members with Holidays In United States and Cash Only Tonys), and their debut EP Jesse Ward kicks off with a song called “Supreme & Bowery” that gives you a very good idea of what they’re all about. It opens with the mock sound of someone flipping through radio stations with sound bites that are full of inside jokes for emo nerds, and when the actual song kicks in, Aeiou prove that their emo quips come with emo chops. “Supreme & Bowery” punches you in the gut with a riff that’s just breakdowny enough to suggest Aeiou have some heavier post-hardcore or metalcore in their DNA, but once the vocals kick in, it’s soaring, yearning, ’90s-style emo in its purest form.

Harrison Gordon – “Like Me Less”

Are you in the mood for some self-deprecating, gritty, catchy emo-punk? Well then turn your attention towards the new Harrison Gordon single, “Like Me Less,” a song the band says “is about having issues with yourself, and projecting those problems on to other people.” It’s off the band’s upcoming Hopeless Records debut Bliss, and it’s got just the right balance of anthemic hooks and inward-looking angst.

Pick up our exclusive “violet & black stripes” vinyl variant of the Harrison Gordon LP.

Pain of Truth – “Unforgiven”

After bringing ’90s NYHC back to life on their 2023 debut LP Not Through Blood, Pain of Truth have gotten heavier and catchier on “Unforgiven,” the first taste of their upcoming self-titled sophomore album. It’s got wall-of-death breakdowns and a screamed hook that’ll rattle around in your head for days; it’s a great example of a hardcore band’s songwriting getting more memorable without toning down any of the aggression.

Pick up our exclusive sea blue smoke vinyl variant of the Pain of Truth LP.

Fiddlehead – “Baby I’ll Change”

In the same year that Fiddlehead vocalist Pat Flynn and drummer Shawn Costa released some of their most pop-oriented music yet with their band How Much Art and guitarist Alex Henery released one of the most triumphant rock albums of his career with the new Basement album, Fiddlehead released the most sweeping, triumphant song of their career. “Baby I’ll Change” finds the post-hardcore band slowing it down, gradually building it up, and reaching a towering climax, with some of the most soul-bearing vocals Pat’s ever put to tape.

Recollection – “Intrusive Thoughts”

Fiddlehead fans may also wanna know wanna know about the new track from Recollection, the self-proclaimed “hard indie” band whose members have also played in Skinhead, Criminal Instinct, Rude Awakening, and other hardcore bands. The song is the title track of the band’s upcoming second EP, and it’s a reflective, melodic, hardcore/alt-rock crossover track with guest vocals from Cherish Hynes that make it even more soaring.

Wrong Man – “Exit Strategy” (ft. Jeremy Bolm)

I’m a simple man. I see “signed to Deathwish” and “featuring Touché Amoré’s Jeremy Bolm,” I click play. Bonus points for when the band features members of great Belgian hardcore and metal bands like Oathbreaker and Rise and Fall. That is all the case for Wrong Man, whose debut album Here’s That Feeling drops 9/11 via Deathwish and is prefaced by the Jeremy Bolm-featuring lead single “Exit Strategy.” It’s an ominous and propulsive post-hardcore song that falls somewhere between The Jesus Lizard and Unwound, a little different than the kind of stuff vocalist Bjorn Dossche (ex-Rise and Fall) and Jeremy Bolm usually sing (or scream) on, but both sound as commanding as ever in this context.

Judiciary – “Wall of Skulls”

Judiciary’s got riffs that rival the most of evil of thrash and death metal bands, but, in their own words, “’90s hardcore and hardcore in general is always gonna be our natural inclination.” That all comes across on “Wall of Skulls,” a hardcore/metal hybrid that should have bodies flying when Judiciary open the Killswitch Engage/Machine Head tour this fall. It’s a rager.

Dreamwell – “Carrion Birds on the Ark”

Subverting organized religion has long been a common practice within heavy music, but there’s nothing tropey about the way Dreamwell do it on “Carrion Birds on the Ark.” It’s a sassy screamo song that uses church imagery and a metaphor about predatory birds to criticize “the long-running history of predation in the church,” as vocalist Keziah “KZ” Staska puts it.

The Linda Lindas – “Closer” (ft. Hayley Williams)

The Linda Lindas have jumped to a major for their upcoming third album, Gotta Get Out, and the album’s lead single features the one and only Hayley Williams. The polished pop punk song is the closest thing to the first three Paramore albums that Hayley has sang on in a while, and The Linda Lindas prove to be very worthy of carrying this torch.

Origami Angel – “Play Around the Crit”

You never know what you’re gonna get from the shapeshifting emo duo Origami Angel, and with “Play Around the Crit,” you get an 88-second emo-pop sugar rush, something they do very, very well.

Riley! – “Another Round of Radical ’Ritas, Please” (ft. Hot Mulligan’s Tades Sanville)

Do you like Hot Mulligan? Then you’re probably gonna like Riley!’s “Another Round of Radical ’Ritas, Please,” which kinda sounds like Hot Mulligan in the first place and then sounds even more like them when HM’s Tades Sanville comes in for a guest verse. Saying this with love for both bands of course. That “If I were you, I’d hate me more!” hook sounds like a pop punk song you’ve heard 100,000 times already and yet it still crosses that chest-clenching threshold so perfectly.

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Honorable mentions: go listen to the new songs by NØ MAN, Contain, Set Your Goals, Self Defense Family, 3 Dollars, Stab, Madball, and Alexisonfire offshoot Dead Tired (whose latest song features Comeback Kid’s Andrew Neufeld). And, 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 April

* Best Songs of March

* Best Songs of February

* Best Songs of January

* Best Songs of December

For even more new songs, listen below or subscribe to our playlist of punk/emo/hardcore/etc songs of 2026:

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

Browse our selection of hand-picked punk vinyl.