Tiffany Tavella (tiffavigilante) plays bass and sings for Teenage Bigfoot, who last released Do It or Don’t in 2019 via Bloated Kat Records. When she’s not writing music and being a band mom, she enjoys biking, writing poetry, cooking elaborate spicy meals, and getting sniped by 10 year olds on Fortnite.
#10 – BOIDS – Quel Drag (Stomp Records)
I came across this Montreal trio by searching through YouTube for new punk music this summer, and when I heard the single “Bike Thief,” I was hooked. This album is chock full of animated, punchy songs to which you can swing a babe around in your arms, both of you singing and spinning wildly & madly. There’s an energy in these songs not too often found or matched before it begins leaning hard into the Weaselcore territory which doesn’t necessarily age well as the listener matures. These songs are fresh, quick & quippy, and I will definitely be looking for more from these guys in the future.
Favorite Tracks: “Bike Thief,” “Stains”
#9 – PEARS – S/T (Fat Wreck Chords)
I’m astounded when a band that’s already exceptional beyond compare manages to one up themselves. There’s not a lot I can say about PEARS that you don’t already know. This album shreds from top to bottom while also showcasing different faces of the band we wouldn’t have otherwise expected to see, like in the song “Traveling TIme.” The song “Naptime” is probably the most brilliant song I’ve heard all year and I will remain forever jealous that I didn’t write it first.
Favorite Tracks: “Cynical Serene,” “Naptime”
#8 – Coriky – S/T (Dischord)
I’ll say it plain, this album is really fucking cool. It’s bluesy, it’s groovy, it’s got that signature Ian MacKaye sound, with this three-piece’s influences all spilling out from the corners but in the most magnificent way. A friend of mine described it as “Fugazi you can play at a barbecue with kids” and before I was through listening to the third track, I was holding a hamburger, somebody’s toddler and the sun was shining hot in June. Amy Farina’s drumming is so gritty and sexy, there’s elements of classic hip-hop drumming in this and she strips it down to something more rooted in the blues where her fills are as free and loose as the bass that is never not pulsing, pulsing, pulsing behind. She really knows how to make the kit work for her.
Favorite Tracks: “Hard to Explain,” “Too Many Husbands”
#7 – X – Alphabetland (Fat Possum)
I love to see old punks aging gracefully and this album is probably one of the best examples of that over the last 30 years. These songs are so fun and fresh while still staying true to the classic X sound and Exene doesn’t sound a day over 25. Each of these songs are expertly and effortlessly arranged, there’s nothing about this that’s trying to sound like it’s 2020 or 1978 either, and to that I raise my glass to X for showing these old punks how to stay cool without pretending to be teens.
Favorite Tracks: “Free,” “Angel on the Road”
#6 – The Chats – High Risk Behaviour (Bargin Bin)
So if you’re like me, when you first heard “Smoko” by the Chats last year, you also couldn’t get enough of this band. These songs are fast, they’re cheeky, they’re the down under Gang of Four, except there’s only three of ’em, one song is funnier & catchier than the next. I even learned a thing or two on this record (like what it means to have “Ross River“)! The Chats are experts at stripping down punk to it’s barest bones and exposing the heart & soul of it, which is having the best fucking time, letting loose, and saying “Fuck it!”
Favorite Tracks: “Drunk and Disorderly,” “Pub Feed”
#5 – Deaf Chonky – Harsh (Et Mon Cul C’est Du Tofu)
This album was surprise find for me. From Tel Aviv, Israel, this two piece (with probably one of the stranger names in the scene) completely blew me away. I went into this knowing nothing about Deaf Chonky and I can safely say I listened to this album and this album only for at least two weeks straight. This is a political record, this is a record about identity and what that means when for empathy towards others, this album dares to speak on the atrocities performed by their home country on a defenseless Palestine. This album dares to be more than just another punk record made by angry girls.
Favorite tracks: “This isn’t a Gimmick, This isn’t a Test,” “I Was Wrong, Turns Out It Feels Real Good”
#4 – The Network – Money Money 2020 Part II: We Told Ya So! (Joe Robot)
When Money Money 2020 came out ten years ago, it was my favorite of all the Green Day side projects of the early 2000s. 20 years later, this is the best music that Billie, Mike, Tre, Jason and all of the other Green Day auxiliaries have written in 20 years. Billie Joe’s synth heavy songs fulfill my deepest angsty-bisexual-goth-in-the-80s fantasies while Mike Dirnt’s tracks are nothing short of brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I mean, have you listened to “Flat Earth?” This is their best effort to write a political album. Songs like “Ivankkka is a Nazi” and “Respirator” say more than all 12 tracks of American Idiot could. Hats off and masks on to this record.
Favorite tracks: “Fentanyl,” “Digital Black”
#3- Tabarnak – Singing Tabarnak
Okay so I don’t speak a lick of Hebrew, but this album is so fucking good that I found myself still woah-ing along whenever possible. From the ashes of Bo Lobar and from the mind of Useless ID‘s Ishay Berger, Tabarnak holds nothing back when it comes to arranging a punk song with depths, layers, twists, and haromonic turns. These songs really take you for a ride. Listening along reminded me so much of being a young punk and stumbling upon Fat Wreck bands like NUFAN and Lagwagon, two of my biggest influences as a musician. These songs carry that same energy, that want to be arm in arm with a brother/a sister/a friend singing loudly into the night, that togetherness feeling, that punks in Spring vibe, that all we have is each other so ain’t no use in letting go emotion.
Favorite Tracks: “פותחים על העולם,” “אתה יכול להיות כל מה שתרצה”
#2 – The Muslims – Gentrified Chicken
I can guarantee you have never heard anything like The Muslims before. Take everything you know about punk rock and what it’s supposed to sound like and throw it right out the window with your old bathwater, because this is as new, fresh, and clean as you’re ever going to get. The opening track, that little bass line grows with so much intensity, building up to that first line that cuts through any and all of your expectations of what this song is about to be: “Oh my fucking God, Johnny’s going down to Wal-Mart/Oh my fucking God, Bobby’s got himself an AR.” I could talk at length about the musical brilliance in each and every one of these songs, how well the Muslims play with and manipulate those familiar punk riffs and chord exchanges to make them feasible within their framework and not the other way around. I want to play 300 shows across the U.S. with the Muslims. Listen to this record and then take that baby for second spin immediately after.
Favorite songs: “Punch A Nazi,” “Call the Cops”
#1 – Jeff Rosenstock – NO DREAM (Polyvinyl)
Jeff done did it again. When I first heard this record, it didn’t quite hit me, but then again, we weren’t quite sure what the rest of the year would look like as we were still planning for Summer to be a summer in 2020. NO DREAM perfectly captures this every day fucking nightmare we endure, where there’s no real end in sight, and when the hopelessness becomes too overwhelming, your only other option is to laugh. Much like Jeff’s 2016 release Worry, this album speaks not only for the time in which it was released, but also on this universal experience that we are all fucked, we’re all scared, and the best we can do is take care of those around us, speak with people we don’t know or are too afraid to meet, and remembering to shift the focus person in us that we’ve been avoiding all along.
Favorite Tracks: “N O D R E A M,” “Monday at the Beach”
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Houseghost – S/T (Rad Girlfriend Records); Trixie Mattel – Barbara, Guerilla Poubelle – L’ennui
TOP FIVE EPs
5. Chelsea Peretti – Foam and Flotsom
4. Cootie Cuties – Sexy Grrrls in Your Area
3. Cootie Cuties – Freebleeder
2. Classics of Love – World of Burning Hate
1. Kane & the Stubborn Stains – S/T
