post-punk – Queen City Sounds and Art

King-Mob’s Industrial Noise Rock Single “Pendulum Days” is the Sonic Equivalent of a Movie Played in Reverse

King-Mob’s “Pendulum Days” sounds like a movie played in reverse. One imagines hearing hammered dulcimer creating tonal textural rhythms, steady and accented cymbal strikes and guitar squalling and sustaining urgent sounds while in the background vocals sound almost as if coming from a trance state. As the song progresses the band takes some chances in more conventional rhythms for a few moments rising in a run for volume before dropping back into what can be described as post-industrial noise jazz. What do you compare this to as a frame of reference? This Heat? Dazzling Killmen? The algorithm recommendations suggest Sightings and Morgan Garrett for more modern references which are apt enough. It’s not quite like that but if you’re into those bands you may find a lot to like in King-Mob’s uniquely creative and strange compositions. Listen to “Pendulum Days” on Spotify and follow King-Mob at the links below. The group’s new EP Arabesque is available now.

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Charm School Sends Up Music Scene Gatekeeper of Privilege on Noise Punk Single “Scene Queen”

Charm School, photo courtesy the artists

Charm School seems to be accelerating the pace the entire length of its single “Scene Queen.” The relentless energy of the song suits its subject matter of the kind of person who is in most music scenes that can be a bit sanctimonious and plays like they’re poor but has a trust fund that they don’t always necessarily try to keep secret but works in restaurants yet is able to pay rent on a warehouse and then move to an expensive city or another county seemingly on a whim once they’ve long outlived their welcome and alienated so many people in the community and leaving mediocre art in their wake. It happens. If you’ve been in any creative community of size there are people that can exert an influence because they have money and thus access to spaces to dangle as important places or the funds to “make things happen” for a little while, sometimes for more than a short bit and seem important but once they’re gone it’s like their significance was way overblown. The song embodies the frustration of dealing with that dynamic with a furious run of noisy, almost abrasive, post-punk that is the band’s signature sound that fans of Drive Like Jehu, mclusky and Angel Hair will appreciate. The group’s new EP Schadenfreude Ploy released February 20, 2026 on cassette, digital download and streaming. Listen to “Scene Queen” on Spotify and follow Charm School below.

Charm School on Instagram

Charm School on Bandcamp

La Sécurité’s Art Punk Single “Bingo” Satirizes the Way Life is Presented as a Game No One Can Really Win Under Late Capitalism

La Sécurité’s new single “Bingo” sounds like it got dropped out of the early 80s No Wave scene with strong, funk-adjacent bass lines and guitar that sounds as much like a textural tone as minimal riff. Keyboards have a quality like something out music for an old video game and the lyrics are delivered in short couplets to build a surreal impressionistic narrative. The words seem to utilize the seemingly random quality of the game Bingo and the disconnected quality of modern life and how it can be like a game you’re forced to play with distinct but arbitrary rules and in which few actually get to win as if winning could possibly be everything or fully satisfying for an actual, analog human being. But in the video directed by Philippe Beauséjour there is a refreshing use of images seemingly cut out and animated like a collage that both enhances the impression of disconnection and the visual aesthetics of another era. There is something undeniably fascinating and thrilling about the mix of styles and moods that makes the song immediately relistenable. Watch the video for “Bingo” on YouTube and follow La Sécurité’ at the links below. The band’s new album Bingo! will become available on June 11, 2026 for digital download and streaming with a vinyl pre-order that ships in December.

La Sécurité on Facebook

La Sécurité on Instagram

Goth Disco’s Driving Rhythms and Atmospheric Melodies on “Chemical Rush” Highlight Its Themes of Navigating the Perils of Club Culture

Goth Disco seems like an appropriate project name in the music heard in “Chemical Rush.” The song pairs dance beats with a distinctive and driving bass line as the prominent musical elements. A touch of guitar adds grit without overwhelming the song with the kind of ghostly atmospheric sounds that one expects out of a post-punk song and the synth harmonics in the backdrop fill out the mood more than become the focal point of the song. The song which seems to be about keeping one’s head in a milieu of club culture and its attendant extracurricular activities has a coherence and sonic focus and its unique production and composition in the realm of modern post-punk sets it apart from a lot of that music that can often feel imitative. Listen to “Chemical Rush” on Spotify and follow Goth Disco at the links provided.

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Goth Disco on YouTube

Cry9c’s Darkly Moody and Enigmatic “Play Pretend” is Reminiscent of Modern Avant-Post-Punk and Early Ambient Industrial

“Play Pretend” has a kind of icy moodiness, enigmatic energy and imaginative production that makes you wonder if Cry9c is tapping into the same frequency of creativity as more left field post-punk bands like The Serfs, Kaput and Luna Honey. The interweaving layers of rhythm, minimal guitar riffs, drones, distorted harmonics and lightly echoing vocals are reminiscent of an update of late 70s and early 80s proto-industrial pop like the members of the band listened to a lot of Cabaret Voltaire, Indian Jewelry and Drab Majesty at the same time. But the song has its own wonderfully dark resonance like the more accessible band at the noise show or the startling refreshingly different arty Witch House band at a more generally conventional post-punk show. The energy of the music is reminiscent of late 2000s American DIY scene with an elusive air of mystique and that’s a rarefied quality these days. Listen to “Play Pretend” on YouTube and follow Cry9C at the links below. The self-titled EP released October 16, 2025 and is available for digital download, streaming and on cassette.

Cry9c on Bandcamp

Welsh Electro-Punks teehin Dismantle the Least Inspiring Aspects of Music and Popular Culture on Raging Single “LARA SCOFFED”

The single “LARA SCOFFED” by Welsh electronic-post-punks teethin is refreshing in its subversion of any expectations one might have using genre tags to give potential listeners a touchstone. The scathing lyrics are simultaneously vulnerable and delivered with a righteous outrage at how the way the way one is “supposed” to operate as an artist in order to get attention for your music or even to get it heard and how that’s intertwined with soft power engines of oppression and capitalist psychological warfare against actual culture is engulfing and cathartic. The songwriting fuses rock sounds with electronic production methods including dub so that the song pulls you along its its heady melange of big beat rhythms, whatever Underworld was doing in the first half of the 90s and post-hardcore thorniness and a dusky and caustic sound that is pure punk spirit without fitting into some neat box as too much punk of the past 40 years has seemed to want to fit. It’s ferocious and exhilarating and calls to task some of the least inspiring aspects of music and popular culture. Listen to “LARA SCOFFED” on Spotify.

The Frenetic Layers of Colorful Sound and Rhythm on A Place To Bury Strangers’ “Let It All Go” Has Perspective Altering Qualities Akin to Avant-Garde Cinema

A Place to Bury Strangers, photo by Ebru Yildiz

“Let It All Go” hits immediately with the crackling and headlong energy we’ve come to expect from A Place To Bury Strangers’ more frenetic offerings. But something about the mix and production conveys an almost visual sense experienced as music. The hyped up motorik beat is insistent but guitar tones flash and fade downward and sideways like the streaks in a post-impressionist painting style lending a sense of suspended time. Oliver Ackerman’s voice echoes rapidly like a dub ghost haunting the beat, the rapid fire guitar melody both pushes to the forefront of the track and then pulls back into the rhythmic and tonal maelstrom so that throughout the focus of sonic field shifts like the musical equivalent of a Stan Brakhage film. Listen to “Let It All Go” on Spotify and follow A Place To Bury Strangers at the links provided.

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A Place To Bury Strangers on Bandcamp

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Public Health’s Noise Rock Single “Goblets” Begins With Angular Moodiness and Ends in an Explosion of Sonic Catharsis

Public Health, photo courtesy the artists

Listening to the angular rhythms and harmonic motes of tone over the main riff in Public Health’s vibrant post-punk/noise rock single “Goblets” will remind some of DC post-hardcore, Efficies and even that band’s Chicago hardcore rivals Articles of Faith. The driving bass and the abstract guitar hanging off it while vocals hang slightly in the background When the cleaner lines in the beginning of the song head into more chaotic and intense territory you can’t help but be swept along into that catharsis. In the end the song is more reminiscent of the gnarly yet disciplined dissonance of Chicago noise rock bands of the 90s but with the dynamic swing and moodiness of a Dischord band. Listen to “Goblets” on Spotify and follow Hamilton, Ontario’s Public Health on Instagram.

AAA Gripper’s Jagged Post-Punk Single “The Arcade Claw King” is an Acerbic and Thrilling Commentary on the Essential Scam of Neoliberalism

The sped up footage of people passing by an arcade in black and white for the video of AAA Gripper’s “The Arcade Claw King” is the perfect visual representation of a song about being a working class person in the consumer culture rat race most people living under Western capitalism exist within as if it’s a genuine choice of “lifestyle.” The jagged, clashing chords and nearly spoken word lyrics reminiscent of the delivery style of both Sleaford Mods and IDLES. And with a similar political orientation. But this song feels more discordant than either but with a similar edge. The title of the song brings to mind the machine that is emblematic of the whole neoliberal shebang/scam where you pay to feel like a winner like you’ve actually accomplished something if you do happen to be able to dislodge a prize from a game that’s rigged for someone to succeed with a skill set that doesn’t reflect their lived experience and talents, rather your energies and attention are channeled into an incredibly narrow range of activity and the best prizes need someone to dislodge those less exciting but it’s all a pile of junk in the end but the thought of attaining one of these trinkets feels like it means something in the moment. The song sounds like that desperation and conscious realization that most of what’s asked of us everyday is a load of shite and a distraction from how society is set up to funnel all goods and the fruits of label are channeled to the top and often not to a human but an organization that is “owned” by people largely detached from how that wealth is created on every level. The song is just one part of a fantastic album full of incisive commentary about life in the world we live in today mixing post-punk angularity with a composer’s sense of atmosphere but implemented to augment a sense of unease and hanging catharsis that does burst into flares of release now and then but not so much that you feel like you’re being pandered to by someone who is going to lie to you and tell you it’s all going to be okay if you just play along with being exploited like a good proletarian. Watch the video for “The Arcade Claw King” on YouTube and follow AAA Gripper from ‘round about Glastonbury, UK at the links below. The band’s album We Invented Work For The Common Good came out on May 16, 2025 via Wrong Speed Records on the 12” LP format and the usual digital versions.

AAA Gripper on Instagram

Sektion Tyrants’ “Systematic Letdown” is a Coldwave Post-Punk Song of Liberation from a Manipulative, Dysfunctional Relationship

Sektion Tyrants channel a touch of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry in its single “Systematic Letdown” but infuse it with some coldwave electronic features. Once the song gets into full gear the already raw vocals take on a sense of desperation combined with a deep disappointment. It lends the track a propulsive emotional energy that paired with dissonant guitar leads and minimal percussive accents fuses a fragile yet expressive structure with a wiry energy that commands your attention to the end. The song is four minutes forty seconds but is so engaging it feels like Sektion Tyrants have compressed that time to half the length while delivering a psychological journey from realization of the emptiness and “lack of substance” of someone formerly close but whose personal deficits hit you with a force of a truth you don’t want to believe but your brain made connections impossible to ignore to dissolve the web of manipulation to which you’ve been subjected for far too long. It’s a song that feels like it comes from a place of pain but through that pain a long-coming liberation from a relationship that had been dysfunctional and corrosive all along. Listen to “Systematic Letdown” on YouTube and follow Sektion Tyrants on Spotify.