Fighting with the Undertow – September update

A monthly playlist of new punk rock, alt rock and indie music tracks

This update includes Destroy Boys, Amyl and The Sniffers, Soccer Mommy, Less Than Jake, Blondshell, and more.

Welcome to Fire Red Sky’s latest playlist of the 20 best punk rock, alt rock and indie music track to be released in the last month.

Fighting with the Undertow, a line from the same Bob Mould song that provided the name Fire Red Sky, is updated in the first week of each month. The playlist aims to help me (and hopefully you too) wade through the deluge of new music and maybe hook our next favourite band or album.

I update the Spotify playlist in the first week of the month and try to include each band/artist just once per year to challenge myself to keep seeking out new music. So there’s no room this time for strong new songs from Kim Deal, High Vis or Laura Jane Grace because they’ve already been featured in previous month’s versions of the playlist.

Here’s some highlights from September’s Fighting with the Undertow.

This playlist is all about considering, and reconsidering, music, whether that’s bands I’ve missed out on, got the wrong idea about or just not come across before. This month the approach has given me a new appreciation for bands/artists like Blondshell and Soccer Mommy, who've previously just not caught my ear. ‘What’s Fair’ by Blondshell, as the LA indie rock musician Sabrina Teitelbaum is better known, draws musically from the warm, lighter side of 90s alt rock, within which are concealed shards of angst. ‘M’ by Soccer Mommy, another nom de guerre – this time for Sophia Allison, is the first single from her next album Evergreen and lives up to its aim of being natural and intimate.

The post-hardcore of Her Head's On Fire, a supergroup of sorts with a pedigree takes in Garrison, Small Brown Bike, The Bomb, and Saves the Day, laces the alt rock of ‘Cuts’ with shoegaze and menace that’s ably brought to life with co-producer Jason Narducy (Superchunk, Bob Mould band). The effect is not a million miles from Swervedriver or a less bombastic early Radiohead and none the worse for that.

The best covers make you want to check both cover-er and cover-ee, and so it's the case with Filth Is Eternal's take on ‘Violet’ by Hole. It's not a version that reinvents the song, sticking pretty close to its 1994 source, but it also avoids being a slavish copy, with the Seattle hardcore band adding their own nuance and urgency to Courtney Love's song. Now to find my copy of Live Through This and hear what Filth Is Eternal - previously known as Fucked and Bound, until social media's iron grip on communication made that somewhat untenable - have been releasing since 2018.

There's a brace of UK DIY punk tunes on this month's playlist, that reflect the scene’s diversity. X-ray Vex is also the keyboardist for Wonk Unit, contributing two standout songs to their last album Uncle Daddy, and she channels her melodic sensibility – via Kate Nash and Squeeze – in ‘Darren’. Meanwhile Pizzatramp, their tongues never planted less than firmly in their checks, channel their apparent Agnostic Front ambitions on their latest thrash punk number ‘Mr Slam’.

Greek band Chain Cult call to mind Home Front and Syndrome 81 with a hard-edged post-punk sound whose hardcore influences would put you off making jokes about trench coats. The Athens band’s song ‘What We Leave Behind’ is taken from Harm Reduction, which is out at the end of this month on La Vida Es Un Mus, and it’s a stirring call to arms.

Punk rock supergroup Off! may have played their last show earlier this year, but the members – led by Keith Morris (ex-Black Flag, Circle Jerks) and Dimitri Coats (ex-Burning Brides) still have more to give. ‘Oblivion’ is a Blu-ray bonus track from the collector’s edition of their “punk rock, sci-fi midnight movie” Free LSD and is shows the band, sadly now on ‘indefinite hiatus’, continuing their recent innovative explorations of punk rock’s outer reaches.

Fighting with the Undertow - September 2024 update

1. Amyl and The Sniffers – Chewing Gum

2. Destroy Boys (with Mannequin Pussy and Scowl) – You Hear Yes

3. Filth is Eternal – Violet

4. Soccer Mommy – M

5. Rolo Tomassi – Aftermath (live)

6. HushMoney – 5x10x2

7. Blondshell – What’s Fair

8. Xray Vez – Darren

9. Buñuel – Drug Burn

10. Goat – Ouroboros (radio edit)

11. Slumped – Dave’s Track

12. Nemahsis – Coloured Concrete

13. Pizzatramp – Mr Slam

14. Her Head’s On Fire – Cuts

15. Off! – Oblivion

16. Christmas – Always Keep Giving Up

17. Less Than Jake – Walking Pipebomb

18. Katie Gavin – Casual Drug Use

19. Chain Cult – What We Leave Behind

20. Quivers – Never Be Lonely

Playlist image and main image by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash