As we hurtle towards oblivion from every possible angle… how about I numerically rate the records I like, for your entertainment? Does that help?? Even as I playfully mock this yearly self-indulgence (in hopes that acknowledging the silliness of this exercise grants me permission to continue with some sort of self-respect intact), I have to say, writing this website-turned-newsletter (but-still-also-very-much-a-website) brings me a lot of joy. Music is my favorite thing, and while the act of blogging, or really doing anything online, can often feel like you’re transmitting directly into your own navel, I have felt more connected than ever via Yellow Green Red to whoever might be reading it. All your emails, comments, notes, re-grams, charitable in-person comments, Substack recommendations (and even Substack donations!), whatever, they all mean a lot to me, even if I still find the act of responding to warm, friendly praise to be difficult and uncomfortable. If you dig it, please, tell a friend, and tell me about the thing you’re doing, too!

Speaking of things other people are doing, I’d like to strongly recommend John’s Music Blog, an email newsletter written by John Chiaverina I discovered this year. He writes with such an obvious passion for underground music, completely ambivalent to trends yet not unaware of them. Most importantly, I’ve discovered so much good stuff from his newsletter, which also makes me routinely chuckle. I never checked out his music project Juiceboxxx back in the day (certain project names just give me an immediate “no thanks, I’m good”, and I’m sure he’d be the first to understand), but maybe I should? Truly, if you enjoy Yellow Green Red at all, I can only assume you’ll enjoy John’s Music Blog a whole hell of a lot too. I’d also like to recommend the fantastic zine newsletter written by underground rock-lifer Jay Hinman, Fanzine Hemorrhage, which made my 2024 significantly brighter. You probably know him from any of his multitude of writing projects: the Superdope zine back in the ’90s, the Agony Shorthang blog from the ’00s, or most recently, his Dynamite Hemorrhage zine and radio show. I really appreciate his perspective, and I think it shines best with Fanzine Hemorrhage, his extended exercise in reviewing old zines. Kind of a funny concept, but he really digs in deep and dissects the underground culture with a reverent yet critical eye that I find deeply entertaining. I don’t want to smudge my thumbs with newsprint, nor do I have any interest in straining my already-weak eyes at the 6-point fonts favored by amphetamine-fueled teenage editors back in 1978, so I thank him for his service. I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters, and buy zines here and there, but John’s Music Blog and Fanzine Hemorrhage receive my highest recommendation.

Now, getting back to me… my band Pissed Jeans released our sixth album this year, Half Divorced. (I know, John is probably thinking “you’re telling me you’re too good for ‘Juiceboxxx’ yet your band is called ‘Pissed Jeans’?” and he’d have a very valid point.) If you haven’t checked it out, that’s alright, I understand, but I’m kindly asking you to please give it a listen wherever you like to consume your digital music free-of-charge. I’m super proud of it, and while every album, big or small, gets lost in today’s cavalcade of new releases, I hope some of y’all will care to pull it up and give it a listen. Or really knock me off my chair and actually buy a copy! I can’t help but think about that one news article from a few weeks back that said more new music is released in a single day in 2024 than in the entire year of 1989. A wild stat, but ‘releasing’ music has never been easier, which is great for those without the financial means for a traditional 1989-styled record release, even if it means there is more being produced than any one person can conceivably check out in a lifetime, let alone a year. That’s why I am suspicious of so many indie year-end lists still looking pretty damn similar to each other! If a list doesn’t have at least a handful of things I haven’t even heard of in 2024, there’s a good chance it’s more beholden to some proprietary algorithm than the writer’s own curious sense of adventure, you know?

That’s one thing that’s been on my mind, even after I did a ton of talking this year! It was mostly Pissed Jeans-related, but some personal highlights include:

– a long overdue chat with Damian Abraham on his Turned Out A Punk podcast

– a vibrant discussion with the wonderful poet Niina Pollari for The Creative Independent

– an appearance on Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast

– an episode of the Birthday Cake For Breakfast podcast

– book chat on the wonderful Reading Writers podcast with Charlotte Shane and Jo Livingstone

– an interview with Larry Fitzmaurice for his Last Donut Of The Night newsletter

– a mostly downtempo/outsider-y mix I put together for the Health Connection crew

Whew! I should probably shut up for all of 2025, but that already seems unlikely. Onward to my lists, though I want to mention that there were so many fantastic albums this year that narrowing it down (in this formal ranking, no less) was extra onerous. Conversely, I noticed a whole lot less happening in the world of singles, both punk and electronic and whatever else fits outside those designations. Many of my favorite singles this time around consist of little more than a YouTube link or a Bandcamp download, but that’s the reality of the world now, and I’m not about to withhold something from my best-of list just because it wasn’t granted an appealing format. Still, it’s wild to me that there’s only one punk seven-inch in my top twenty! The format is clearly dying off at an alarming rate, and I assume it’s a matter of economics, seeing as no one actually needs to buy a record to hear its songs anymore, and as prices continue to rise, I’m sure it feels awkward (and fruitless) to ask for (or pay) like fifteen bucks for a seven-inch, or twenty-plus for a twelve-inch single; and yet, the domestic thirty-dollar LP is now established as the low-end norm, even for punk records. Speaking of LPs, if you missed it, earlier this year I released The Burgundy Daughns on vinyl, a collection of rare, previously-digital Daughn Gibson material from the last few years. It sold out in two weeks, but I was afraid of sitting on boxes of ’em if I pressed much more, so I’m sorry if you missed it and wanted one. Hopefully it just means more Daughn records to come. Alright, Happy New Year everyone, see you on the other side…

Top Singles of 2024
1. Safe Mind 6’ Pole MP3
2. TisaKorean bEat uP dAt bOy MP3
3. Zillas On Acid Mars Hum EP 12″ 
4. Mikey Thrythm MP3
5. Marie Davidson Y.A.A.M. 12″
6. Artificial Go Hopscotch Fever 12″
7. Toribio Bring Dat Jazz 12″ 
8. Personal Damage Violent Ritual 7″
9. Carrier In Spectra 12″
10. Yambag Mindfuck Ultra 12″
11. 1900Rugrat Clean & Dirty MP3
12. ESP Promise MP3s
13. DJ Rat Nocturne 12″
14. Shed Applications 12″
15. Public Acid Deadly Struggle 12″
16. Her New Knife Chrome Is Lullaby CD-EP
17. Kite Losing / Glassy Eyes 7″
18. Michele Ottini Acqua Alla Gola 7″
19. Ciel & CCL Tilda’s Goat Stare 12″
20. Demdike Stare x Dolo Percussion Dolo DS 12″

Honorable Mention:
Zero Key Zero Key 12″
Alien Nosejob The Executioner / West Side Story 7″
Burial / Kode9 Phoneglow / Eyes Go Blank 12″
Extortion Threats 7″
Fake Last Name Three Persuasion Domains 7″

Top Albums of 2024
1. Disintegration Shiver In A Weak Light
2. Straw Man Army Earthworks
3. BASIC This Is BASIC
4. The Minneapolis Uranium Club Infants Under The Bulb
5. Anadol & Marie Klock La Grande Accumulation
6. Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew MAY
7. The Dark Sinking Into Madness
8. Shop Regulars Shop Regulars
9. Persher Sleep Well
10. B L A C K I E Noise God
11. Ulla & Ultrafog It Means A Lot
12. B. Rupp Pop Music
13. Jay Glass Dubs Resurgence
14. Mordecai Seeds From The Furthest Vine
15. Norms 100% Hazaárulás
16. K. Freund Trash Can Lamb
17. Morgan Garrett Purity
18. Tim Koh & Sun An Salt And Sugar Look The Same
19. Holy Tongue Meets Shackleton The Tumbling Psychic Joy Of Now
20. Moin You Never End

Honorable Mention:
Uniform American Standard
The Sheaves A Salve For Institution
Astrid Sonne Great Doubt
Maria Bertel & Nina Garcia Knækket Smil
Knowso Pulsating Gore

Safe Mind 6′ Pole (no label)
Top single of the year was a no-brainer for me, as “6′ Pole” was easily my most-played track of 2024. It’s not only the best track from the new duo Safe Mind, it’s their only publicly-available track, and I am absolutely dying for more (and the inevitable vinyl release – come on now, stop playing). Safe Mind is Augustus Muller of Boy Harsher on the beats and programming and Cooper B. Handy (AKA Lucy) on vocals, and “6′ Pole” combines the best of their respective worlds: Muller’s perfectly layered, never-overstuffed synths slide out of Boy Harsher’s goth basement and into the main club room and Handy’s unique use of the English language (in both the way the lyrics are written on paper as well as how they are pronounced out loud) pushes it over into a bullseye ear-worm whose joy has not lessened in the months since I first heard it. Through a deep Lucy discography, Handy has proven his ability to rap-sing over anything – the Titanic soundtrack, a TV commercial jingle, a malfunctioning MPC, whatever – and Muller lays it out for him perfectly, a vibrant, house-y bass-line with dance-pop drum programming, an uncommonly chime-y synth hook and even some occasional guitar licks as the cherry on top. Or are those record-scratch sound effects the cherry and the guitar is the whipped cream?? Either way, this song is so much fun, like The Rapture combined with Kid N’ Play via Not Not Fun Records appearing live at The Haçienda on December 31st, 1999. Knowing how Boy Harsher does it, I can only assume they’re eventually going to roll out like eight different ‘vinyl variants’ for Safe Mind and I might be stupid enough to buy more than one, if only to give my extra to a friend who hasn’t heard it yet.

Disintegration Shiver In A Weak Light (Feel It)
Like I said, lots of great albums made it into my home over the last twelve months, and while this list is very much a snapshot taking in the particular moment I decided to jot it all down and tally it up, I feel confident in saying that Disintegration’s debut full-length Shiver In A Weak Light gets my top honor this year. Yes, Straw Man Army are incredible, The Dark are on another level, I’ve got the BASIC album on repeat and that Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew set blew my mind, but Disintegration have satisfied all my listening needs, from the rough to the smooth. They’re experimental: their fusion of synths, programming and guitars is unusually muscular and gritty, and their songs aren’t beholden to typical pop structuring (though they’re not actively against it, either) nor are they averse to various forms of noise. They’re pop: “Pioneer” and “Messages” are huge, with hooks bred to entertain stadiums of idiots but cursed to whip stylish bar crowds into a frenzy. “Shot By Both Sides” combines gross Lords Of Acid-style squelching with the emotional grip of vocalist Haley Himiko, but “Hideaway” is the single to end all singles, stomping in like an electro Gary Glitter before flipping dimensions into some high-gloss amalgam of Xeno & Oaklander and Modern English. You couldn’t fit its massive hook in a freight elevator, and then someone drops a wretchedly distorted guitar solo in the mix, which somehow fits! It’s like Disintegration are making synth-pop with an entirely different set of stylistic references than the rest of the pack, giving me visions of La Roux joining Front 242 for their own Mortal Kombat soundtrack, only it was actually released on Coil’s Eskaton label… and went platinum. Year after year, I swear I’m not trying to be a Feel It mark, but my annoying neighborhood nemesis could’ve released Shiver In A Weak Light and I’d have no choice but to sing its praises all the same. I had to miss Distintegration’s Philly show earlier this month, and barring any life-threatening circumstances I won’t make that same mistake twice.

Somehow, through the dense gloom of grief, Arthur Rizk – guitarist, producer and underground metal’s unsung hero of the century – managed to put together a tribute show for his bandmate Brad Raub, whose untimely death earlier this year crushed anyone who had the pleasure of knowing him. Rizk kept it within the family for this gig, stacking the bill with four bands of which he is an active member. It would be a marathon performance for him, no doubt, but Rizk is nothing if not inexhaustibly dedicated to his loved ones, as well as electric guitars blaring out of double Marshall stacks. I’ve known him since he was sixteen (and Brad since he was thirteen!), and while the finality of it all smacked me with a fresh wave of sorrow I naively didn’t see coming, the countless friends, kinfolk and fans that packed the grimy cement-basement walls of Underground Arts over capacity supplied a bittersweet warmth.

Sumerlands were first to take the stage, Brad’s ashes in a black canvas Manowar tote overseeing the event from atop a speaker stack. Sumerlands are probably Rizk’s least popular group, but that wouldn’t be the case if I was in charge of doling out popularity, as their dark, sensual take on late ’80s major-label thrash-metal is truly inspired. With two Relapse albums to their name, vocalist Phil Swanson opened the set with material from the group’s self-titled debut (on which he sang). With the packed crowd starting to warm up, Swanson respectfully passed the mic to current Sumerlands vocalist Brendan Radigan, whose theatrical howl and skulking stage-moves added a glorious jolt of energy to the proceedings. Swanson’s stoic delivery could verge on 2D, whereas Radigan was animated and dynamic, embodying his role of an ominous, mischievous metal cleric. Radigan sang on the group’s sophomore effort, Dreamkiller, and he belted out my personal fave “Twilight Points The Way” with impeccable range, proving that his pipes required no studio trickery (which reminds me – did Chris Jericho ever refute Sebastian Bach’s claims of lip-synching?). If Radigan was humorless, he could be the Steve Perry of modern metal, but his banter about Brad “gooning from Valhalla” was the most entertaining tribute of the evening. Along with Eternal Champion, Brad played bass in this group, his lines replaced by a backing track on stage as Rizk and John “Newjohn” Powers locked into dazzling dual-lead guitar solos for the first of many times that night.

Up next were War Hungry, Rizk’s group of which I had the least familiarity. I’ll be honest, I checked out War Hungry’s 2011 self-titled full-length when it came out and didn’t care for it at all, and it had been just as long since I had given them a second thought. It would seem I have some catching up to do, then, as it took half a brain cell for me to appreciate their meaty mix of Pantera riff-logic and NYHC beatdown breaks. If these are the same songs I heard on that full-length thirteen years ago, I have no idea where I went wrong or how my perception (or the band’s delivery) has changed. Whereas the crowd was respectfully stagnant for Sumerlands, bodies were soaring and flailing in typical revved-up hardcore fashion from the moment War Hungry set it off. It came to an abrupt halt after maybe five songs, however, as one stage-diver was unlucky enough to find a body-less space, landing head-first on the cement. Knocked out cold, the band had to pull the plug mid-song, and while I was not about to push my way through the crowd just to rubberneck someone’s terrible luck, an unexpected half-hour delay took place as an ambulance was called and the diver was stretchered out. With modern capital-H hardcore’s preference for these speedy headfirst dives at obtuse diagonal angles off the sides of the stage, I’m surprised this sort of gnarly situation isn’t more common. I figured that was it for War Hungry’s set, as the spirit of the room sagged considerably while everyone wondered if this guy would regain the ability to move his hands and feet (I heard that he did), but War Hungry picked up where they left off for a few more songs (and almost immediately, the dives resumed).

I get the impression that Rizk is a hired-gun for War Hungry and Cold World, but he’s one of the primary songwriters for the two non-hardcore metal groups that performed, Sumerlands and Eternal Champion. One of the few contemporary metal groups for whom having an “official fan club” makes sense, Eternal Champion ushered forth their fantasy power-metal with full commitment, vocalist Jason Tarpey emerging in a fearsome chain-mail coif (that I believe, as a literal blacksmith, he forged himself). Their galloping, epic metal thrilled the more Dungeons & Dragons-leaning members of the audience, ready to throw up their signs-of-the-hammer in glorious adulation. Seeing as Manowar played their only US show last month in what must’ve been years and most of us missed it, an Eternal Champion show is as close as we’re gonna get to this level of fully-committed, triumphant metal heroism, Rizk’s riffs shifting through motifs redolent of ’90s Metallica, ’80s Judas Priest and all eras of Manowar with the blink of a dragon’s eye. I take my thirteen year-old son to a comic shop specifically for the excellent recommendations given by the young-ish long-haired guy who works there (he finished Urasawa’s Monster series, what should he read next?), and lo and behold, that friendly cashier was right up front for Eternal Champion’s entire set, arms raised in invisible-oranges pose and head thrashing about in pure ecstasy. Next time we stop by, I’m going to casually sprinkle some Helloween song titles into our conversation and see if he bites.

Before Cold World took the stage, I did what any self-respecting Cold World fan would do and hit their merch table! Thirty dollars and one Operation Ivy-parody T-shirt later, I bumped into personal mosh icon Jay Scheller, who I first spotted in front of the stage for War Hungry’s set. He told me he’s been listening to a lot of Roc Marciano and Elucid and urged me to do the same, and we bemoaned the loss of Double Decker Records (the place I first met Brad), having just past the first anniversary of its closing. Even on a regular night, Cold World brings out a crowd filled with old friends, but alongside those who primarily came to honor the memory of Brad Raub in attendance, you couldn’t do a windmill without clocking a friendly acquaintance in the nose. The guy who runs a well-curated bookstore in Fishtown was there (I didn’t know he liked this kind of hardcore – the gold chain he wears should’ve been a clue); a bandmate of mine talked to his pal in Pissgrave who confirmed their third LP is nearing completion; another friend revealed to me that noise impresario DJ Dog Dick and fashion designer Lauren Manoogian (who needs to release a men’s line already!) were high-school best friends. This goofy cross section of benevolent gossip echoed the spirit of Brad, a guy who would always somehow already be friends with the least likely people in the room. The world is a dimmer place without his cheerful, unguarded extroversion, though I felt it in practice that night.

Which brings us to Cold World. An argument can be made that they are the last innovative hardcore band, and while I’d be happy to have that discussion with you offline, there is no squabbling about the dynamic power of the group onstage. After a lengthy delay (c’mon Arthur, three other sets and you can’t find a working guitar cable??) featuring a lot of Supertramp over the PA and the anxious on-stage guitar noodling of WarZone and Underdog classics, Cold World dove in and didn’t look back. Three guitars strong and riding high after an unassailable 27-13 Eagles victory earlier in the evening, the crowd was fully committed to shouting Dan Mills’s words back at him, louder than any microphone could be. As bodies continued to fly, little guys in fitted caps and giant guys with diamond earrings all materialized in a pit that was equal parts frenzied, communal and dangerous – a decent shorthand definition for hardcore itself. Finishing his sweatiest set of the night (even with a fresh shirt for each band – the Sepultura hockey jersey was my favorite), I hope Rizk felt at least some fraction of the love that he has given to all these excellent bands, and his dearly missed friend, back from all of us.