10 Raddest Records of 2024

AFOS, N8NOFACE, Ekko Astral and more...

Lists are bullshit. Here’s another one. Merry Christmas.

10. A Flock of Seagulls Some Dreams (August Day)

What if I told you that the band that epitomizes ’80s synth pop, a band that formed in Liverpool in 1979, has released an album of new music at the ass-end of 2024 ?

That’s right, A Flock of Seagulls is back.

Sort of.

While watching AFOS video on YouTube late at night, as one does, I saw the band had an upcoming show at The Couch House in San Juan Capistrano that week. So I bought tickets, and went down the rabbit hole of A Flock of Seagulls lore. Some Dreams was released on December 9, 2024. Yes, two weeks ago. The first new music from AFOS since 1995 is cause for major celebration. (We are living in the best of timelines and the worst of timelines.)

The original singer and keyboardist Mike Score, who once upon a time had very interesting hair, plays with a traveling band. That band, however, wasn’t in San Juan Capistrano on Friday night. It was just Mike, his Roland, and his microphone and a lot of people weren’t too happy about that.

The Coach House is a small venue that specializes in tribute bands and what can be charitably called nostalgia-driven experiences. It caters to an older crowd. All tickets are seated and unless you want to be stuck on a barstool in the back, you’re strongly encouraged to by dinner tickets with a $20 minimum food order per person. It’s kind of a grift, especially if you’re watching a cover band, because the food isn’t great.

But Mike Score performing solo, as a lone seagull, in an intimate space with an excellent sound system? Merry fucking Christmas. That was my attitude anyway. A third of the people left and many of those who stayed were uncertain about the Mike Score and his laptop show.

Then something remarkable happened. Something I’ve never experienced at a concert before. He performed “Space Age Love Song,” a song so great that anyone who refers to AFOS as a one-hit wonder deserves to be socked in the mouth immediately.

“That was fun,” Mike said. “Let’s do it again. You know the words, so why don’ t you sing it with me?”

Then he played the song again. It was the exact same song, played the exact same way, back-to-back, except now we were his and we gave ourselves to the performance. I might have even jumped up and played air guitar during the solo…

As for Some Dreams, from the opening notes of the titular song I was rocketed back to the intensity of adolescent yearning. The simple lyrics are nostalgia bombs of middle-age regret and hope for the future. A perfect way to start 2025.

9. The Cure Songs of a Lost World (Fiction/Polydor)

We should have known we were doomed when the Cure dropped its 14^th studio album a few days before the election. I’m not going to compare and contrast it with previous records, especially when Robert Smith has made it clear there’s more to come. I’m just going to call it what it is: a masterpiece of gloom. It’s worth noting the Cure didn’t just drop a new album on November 1; the band played a three-hour concert and put the whole thing online for free.

8. Kate Clover Here Comes the Apocalypse Dream (SongVest Records)

Snappy dressers, ripping guitars, and a blazing live show. What’s not to like? The production is a little slick, but Kate Clover is at the top of my list of bands to see live in 2025.

7. Touché Amoré Spiral in a Straight Line (Rise Records)

Sometimes a band presents itself as impenetrable, but all it takes is a great song with arresting hooks to reel you in. “Hal Ashby” was that song for me.

6. High Vis Guided Tour (Dais Records)

When High Vis released a new track with the lyric, “What is truth when the mind’s a lie?” I knew Guided Tour was going to be one of my favorite records of the year—just don’t ask me to describe it. If you took the tracks from the new album and looked for a similar-sounding song in the band’s catalog you’d come up empty every time.

In my novel-in-progress, I use the term “Post post-hardcore hardcore” to describe a fictional experimental hardcore band that sounds both new and old at the same time. I may as well have been describing Guided Tour.

5. N8NOFACE L’s Up (Sin Cara Records)

Long Beach synth menace makes the list for the second year in a row with a collection of rap-rock anthems that came out of his involvement with Fred Durst’s Loserville Tour and sound like they were cooked-up in a basement in Berlin. Remember kids: “A real loser is someone so afraid of not winning they don’t even try.” Bet. Favorite track: “Churro.”

4. The Chisel What a Fucking Nightmare (Pure Noise)

The band that kicked off the resurgence in Oi! (to my mind anyway) is back with another slab of driving street punk. The Chisel wrote the template for new school English pub rock by stripping away the casual (and not-so casual) racism, misogyny and homophobia that attracted violent knuckleheads to this style of music 45 years ago. Ironically, they do it while maintaining a hard, violent edge that is mostly directed at the knuckle draggers who champion the intolerance of yesteryear. It’s an ideological ouroboros and a hell of a lot of fun.

3. Ekko Astral Pink Balloons (Topshelf Records)

One of the biggest surprises in 2024 was how Washington D.C.’s Ekko Astral got its hooks into me with its tripped-out, message-driven music it calls moshpit mascara. Ekko Astral captures the impossibility of being at the quarter-pole of the 21^st century while making music the feels fresh and essential. If the distorted guitars and inspired lyrics don’t get you, the sustained strangeness of the arrangements will. Along with Pickaxe and Grudge, I’m really excited about the guitar heavy punk and hardcore coming out of DC.

2. Long Knife Rip City Bonerpunk Classics Vol. 1 (TKO Records)

I’m an old punk so that means there’s going to be at least one compilation on the list. This one collects all the EPs and singles by Portland’s Long Knife. In-your-face lyrics, riffs for days, and the best album title of year. Hell yeah. Hat tip to

Tony Rettman

for the recommendation.

1. Phane Maniac (Phobia Records)

12 songs, 27 minutes, and every one of them will melt your face off with epic intros and sick licks. UK-style head-chopper punk. I probably listened to this record a billion times this year. Sign me up for a billion more.

Here are some more entries in categories I just made up….

Raddest record of 2024 that came out in 2023: Home State Games of Power. Recency bias applies, but I’m obsessed.

Raddest show in a record store: Grudge, Pickaxe & Gay Baseball at Relax Records in Washington, DC.

Raddest record that rewired my imagination: DAF Gold und Liebe. Seriously, why does this go so hard?

Raddest show in a basement: Infant Sanchos at the Au in Frankfurt, Germany.

Raddest show I’ll never see again: Every show is unique. Even if the same three bands play a show at the same venue on consecutive nights, it’s a different show. That’s why we go see the same bands over and over again. The band I’ve seen the most since the pandemic is OFF! But it’s the end of the line for Keith’s most interesting band and punk rock is a little less radical without them.

Raddest nostalgia-driven experience that low-key shocked me: I’m never surprised when old bands sound, well, old, but Modern English blew me away.

Raddest corporate concert: Not applicable. Corporate rock is never radical. It can be interesting, entertaining, and even arresting, but I repeat: corporate rock is never radical.

MFTU book giveaway continues…

I forgot to mention the giveaway last week, but it’s still going strong. There are two ways to enter: become a paid subscriber and/or leave a comment. That’s all it takes to qualify for the book giveaway and I’m giving away a ton of stuff. See you in the comment section…

Thanks for reading! Next week’s newsletter will come from the road, which means no Orca Alert! this weekend, and lists all the books I read this year.

If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider checking out my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

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