Words by Jim Testa
Jim Testa founded the highly influential zine, Jersey Beat in 1982 which he continues to edit to this day. Through writing for his own publication and a number of other outlets, including as a staff writer for Hudson County’s Jersey Journal, he has championed local, regional and national up-and-coming bands. Punk has always shunned credentials, but rest assured that Jim won’t lead you astray.
GRAND SLAMS
THE BROKEDOWNS – Please Tip The Landlord (Red Scare Industries)
Over the course of eight albums over two decades, The Brokedowns have carved out a reputation for resilience. Rather than succumbing to bitterness, the band channels their determination into refusing to appease the wealthy, powerful, and hypocritical figures who dominate society. Please Tip The Landlord is an album defined by its loud, humorous, and unmistakably Chicago character. The songs reflect experiences shaped by countless election cycles, rising rents, and the ongoing chaos of social media. Through it all, The Brokedowns maintain a sense of humor that is as fierce as it is self-deprecating, and their anger remains genuine and relatable. Between the distorted guitars and Kris Megyery’s powerful vocals, the band’s frustration becomes universal—echoing shared grievances over issues like climate change denial, overwhelming working-class debt, and the latest conspiracy to disrupt local school boards. This anger is not just the band’s; it belongs to everyone who has felt disillusioned by the state of the world.
PIGEON PIT – Leash Aggression (Ernest Jenning Record Co.)
Lomes Oleander, the proudly queer voice, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist of Olympia, WA’s Pigeon Pit, uses no pronouns except “I” and “you.” In an alto voice that always sounds like a conversation with a close friend, Oleander sings about life – it’s called “maximum journalling” – without regard to verses or choruses. “Thread the Needle,” “Landlord Special,” and “Rearview Mirror Blues” feel like late‑night tour‑van confessionals, all fetid air and fast-food wrappers and the stubborn belief that there’s a reason to keep driving. Oleander’s lyrics, ripped from a dog-eared notebook that lives on the road, tell about punk rock shows and landlords and bus rides, but mostly how hard love can be. The songs are set to bouncy and melodic folk-punk with rustic acoustic guitars, piano, fiddle, bass, drums, and harmonica, instrumentation that trades volume for the quieter pressure of watching yourself try to grow up without giving in. There’s a comfortable lilt to the music until a line jumps out and hits you like an icepick in the eye: “I can tell the waitress things I can’t tell my friends,” “I can’t believe that I believe that you believe in me,” “cowards never die, so I guess I’ll just keep seeing you around,” “you look at parties through binoculars, you hope the distance makes you strong.” Leash Aggression marks Pigeon Pit’s second full-length of 2025. Crazy Arms, released in January, is bouncier, catchier, and louder, with electric instruments. The two albums make a matching set, and I heartily recommend you check out both.
HOME RUNS
WRECKLESS ERIC – England Screaming (Tapete Records)
Back in the late ’70s, Wreckless Eric seemed like Stiff Records’ madcap mascot—the scruffy kid brother to Costello and Lowe—forever doomed to live in the shadow of “Whole Wide World.” But when the Stiff circus burned him out, he bolted for Europe and reinvented himself over and over: Le Beat Group Electrique, the Donovan of Trash, the Len Bright Combo, Hitsville House Band, and the Captains of Industry. That last stint ended with 1985’s A Roomful of Monkeys, a record that flopped so badly it might’ve buried a lesser man for good.
Fast-forward four decades, and Goulden, ever the old punk misfit, has come home to settle unfinished business. England Screaming finds him digging up those long-lost Captains songs and giving them the treatment he always thought they deserved. No hired guns, no major label gloss—just Eric doing nearly everything himself, with Amy Rigby (his wife and partner-in-crime) and Marc Valentine helping out on harmonies and Sam Shepherd keeping the beat. The results sound rough, human, and truly alive.
That voice, still unmistakable after all these years, hasn’t lost a thing. Maybe it’s grown a little ragged but so has the world he’s singing about. What began as an angry young man’s howl has turned into the wounded but unbroken rasp of experience. England Screaming proves that Eric Goulden never stopped caring—he just finally found the right way to scream.
MALA VISTA – “Snub Nose .38” EP (Spaghetty Town Records)
These leather-jacketed New Yorkers keep the spirit of ’77 Punk alive without sounding like a cover band or revival act. These songs explode with lively licks and an intoxicating beat that owes as much to boogie-woogie as “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Through four transfixing tracks of down ‘n’ dirty rock ‘n’ roll, the quartet’s ear for melody, lively guitars, gang vocal choruses, and infectious energy never let up. RIYL: The Vibrators, Dead Boys, Teenage Head.
THE YOUNG HASSELHOFFS – “The Young Hasselhoffs” EP (Mom’s Basement Records)
Turns out Mom’s Basement Records is turning ten, and they’re celebrating the only way they know how—by giving away something fans actually want. The label pressed two new tracks from the Young Hasselhoffs’ upcoming 2026 LP as 7-inch singles, tossing them in for free with mail orders. A third song is being shipped off for the overseas crowd—no digital release at all, so if you want one, better get on it quick.
“Adeline” hits like the Hasselhoffs always do—bright, zippy, and hooky as hell. Then they flip the script with “Come Back, Marie,” a slow, swooning nod to doo-wop and sock-hop heartbreak. But the real prize might be “Are You Alone?,” the one headed for Europe and Japan—a jangly, harmony-soaked pop-punk gem complete with an organ break straight out of heaven. Ten years in, Mom’s Basement is still doing pop-punk right, and The Hasselhoffs sound sharper than ever.
POP UPS & FOUL BALLS,
BENEATH YOU – General Hermitude (Sell The Heart Records)
Green Day started as a pop-punk trio and morphed into the sound of Alternative Rock. Beneath You cuts to the chase and gets there from their debut. Vocalist Mary Diridon might be new to the San Francisco scene but in Beneath You, she’s back by former members of Dance Hall Crashers, Limp, and Year of the Fist for 11 tracks of brawny rock with a few gestures (harmonies, whoa-oh’s, some ska-punk beats) towards pop-punk. Mostly, you get big, beefy songs more suitable for radio than mosh pits.
DRUNKS WITH GUNS – Live (Trouble In River City Records)
Three studio sessions and four live shows: that was it for Drunks With Guns back in 1984. Somehow, though, those much-bootlegged tapes combined with word of mouth turned the band into legends, often credited as the forefathers of sludge-core. Now, a 2024 board tape of a latter-day Drunks With Guns lineup assembled by frontman Mike Doskocil lets the world hear raw and unapologetic versions of those lost songs. The music is, predictably mostly slow, muddy, and almost painfully dumb. It thuds and blusters without melody or wit, with musicianship that never rises above the rudimentary. The songs rail about zombies, leprosy, drugs, guns, pro wrestling, DWI’s, and beer. To paraphrase Salman Rushdie, “sometimes legends are more useful than the facts.”