AM Radio: September 2023
The best new hardcore and community-made music, updated monthly for Anti-Matter.
September is typically the month where all the albums that were being teased in the summer finally come out, and that’s certainly been the case: Full albums and EPs from Angel Du$t, Magnitude, Pain of Truth, Phantom Bay, and With Honor made their way into the world, just in time for this month’s AM Radio drop.
As always, AM Radio is not a running list of every new release, but a running list of select songs that I have personally handpicked to share. This is what I’m actually listening to; no one else influences what gets added. That’s a promise.
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ANGEL DU$T “Space Jam” (Pop Wig, September 2023)
I loved “Space Jam” when they first released it this summer, but Justice Tripp is such a singular—and unpredictable—figure in hardcore right now that I wanted to wait until I’d heard the new album, Brand New Soul, before going in on a full-throated cosign. Good news, then: Angel Du$t have successfully pulled off one of the most “fuck genre cops” moves of all time, and this is one of the most liberated albums I’ve ever heard.
PAINT IT BLACK “Famine” (Revelation, September 2023)
If you haven’t read my interview with Dan Yemin yet, it’s a great primer to get you started on approaching Paint It Black’s forthcoming Revelation debut. Yemin has always used the band as a vehicle for political disaffection, but not enough has been made of the way he manages to weave his own very human struggles into the narrative. Famine is poised to change that, and the title track is a powerful first look.
TAKING MEDS “Memory Lane” (Smartpunk, September 2023)
I saw Taking Meds open for 7 Seconds earlier this year, but I’m not sure I was ready for how much they were going to level up on their new album, Dial M for Meds. Opener “Memory Lane” is a deeply memorable merge of Hüsker Dü and Guided by Voices with a post-hardcore sensibility throughout. It’s one of those songs that dares you to press repeat.
JOLIETTE “Lemus” (Zegema Beach, August 2023)
I discovered the Mexico City-based Joliette earlier this summer when Touche Amore’s Jeremy Bolm shared a song on his Instagram. While the two bands clearly share an aesthetic, Joliette work a harder edge—somewhere between West Coast screamo, early ‘90s crust, and the more angular push-pull rhythms of D.C.’s most difficult bands. It’s wild, but damn, does it come together.
MAGNITUDE “Deliverance” (Triple B, September 2023)
All I can say is that if Magnitude were a band in 1994, they would have been in Anti-Matter. They would have slid up against Undertow and Outspoken with ease, and yet they would have held their own: Of Days Renewed… is a keenly satisfying third album that sets the template for hardcore bands who want to evolve without having to change styles. For Magnitude, it’s a promise fulfilled.
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What I love about these playlists as you get older most people get stuck listening to the music from their youth and listen to that music for the rest of their life. For example my father is in his 80s and believes that music stopped with Frank Sinatra.