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The Best Experimental Rock Bands/Artists

Similarly to avant-garde rock and avant-garde rock bands, experimental rock takes rock music and takes it to places where many mainstream bands are afraid to go. Experimental rock bands are among the most interesting bands with extremely rabid, loyal fanbases. Usually, experimental rock bands will tinker with things like song structure, and showcases a different side of a rock band. Technical prowess is crucial for experimental rock bands to challenge the status quo. Beginning in the 1960s, experimental rock used elements from free jazz, classical music and even psychedelic rock to create a sound people had never heard before. Experimental rock has also called post-rock.

So, who are considered experimental rock bands? You can't think of experimental rock without bringing up Frank Zappa, Brian Eno and even Neil Young. These guys took traditional rock music and decide to create their own subtexture to their sound. How else can you accurately explain what Zappa and the Mothers of Invention did? They took traditional music and made it their own, hence the experimental rock label. Elements of Krautrock, ambient music and underground music were embraced by experimental rock bands.

David Bowie

The Velvet Underground

The Beatles

Frank Zappa

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Top 20 Best Experimental Rock Bands Ever

June 12, 2024 By Jimmy Leave a Comment

For enthusiasts eager to discover the most inventive sounds, exploring groundbreaking bands in experimental rock offers an exciting journey through unique musical landscapes. Each featured band brings its own distinct flavor, pushing the boundaries of rock music into uncharted territories.

1. Radiohead

Radiohead transformed the music scene with their shift to an electronic and experimental sound , particularly with their landmark album “Kid A.” This innovative approach cemented their place in experimental rock , blending alternative rock with innovative electronic elements.

Swans have become legendary for their intense live performances and continually evolving sound. Albums like “The Seer” showcase their ability to blend post-punk and experimental elements, captivating audiences for decades.

3. Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth played a significant role in shaping the noise rock and indie rock genres with their groundbreaking music. Their influential album, “Daydream Nation,” highlights their unique mix of noise rock and alternative styles.

4. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band pioneered avant-garde rock with their unique and challenging compositions. Their iconic album, “Trout Mask Replica,” blends art rock and avant-garde elements, making a lasting impact on the genre.

5. The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground were key figures in the 1960s art and music scene, blending rock with avant-garde elements. Led by Lou Reed, their experimental approach and proto-punk sound left a significant mark on music history.

6. Animal Collective

Animal Collective incorporates a diverse range of sounds and styles, seamlessly blending folk and electronic music. Their album, “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” is a prime example of their neo-psych and experimental approach.

Battles are renowned for their complex rhythms and innovative use of loop pedals and electronics. Their album “Mirrored” exemplifies the band’s unique blend of math rock and experimental sounds.

8. Deerhoof

Deerhoof masterfully blends pop melodies with noise and experimental structures, creating a distinctive sound. Their album “The Magic” showcases their unique approach to noise pop and boundary-pushing musical arrangements.

Can , a German band, is celebrated for their pioneering work in electronic and ambient music. Their album “Tago Mago” is a hallmark of krautrock and experimental innovation, influencing countless artists.

Björk continually pushes musical boundaries with her innovative use of technology and unique voice. Her album “Vespertine” exemplifies her art pop and electronic creativity, creating a truly immersive experience.

11. Tom Waits

Tom Waits is renowned for his gravelly voice and unique blend of jazz, blues, and avant-garde sounds. His album “Swordfishtrombones” showcases his experimental approach, offering a captivating mix of blues and unconventional musical elements.

12. This Heat

This Heat made a significant impact on the experimental music scene with their innovative use of tape loops and unconventional structures. Their album “Deceit” is a notable example of their post-punk and experimental sound.

13. The Mothers of Invention

The Mothers of Invention , led by Frank Zappa, combine rock with satirical and avant-garde elements. Their music, including works under Zappa’s direction, pushes the boundaries of psychedelic rock and experimental innovation.

14. Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd revolutionized music with their groundbreaking use of studio effects and long-form compositions. Their iconic album “The Dark Side of the Moon” perfectly blends progressive rock and psychedelic elements.

15. Death Grips

Death Grips are famous for their aggressive and unconventional style, blending electronic, punk, and hip-hop elements. Their industrial and experimental approach has redefined the boundaries of hip-hop music.

16. Tortoise

Tortoise played a key role in shaping the post-rock genre with their innovative use of jazz, electronic, and minimalism. Their album “TNT” is a standout example of their experimental approach and genre-blending sound.

17. The Voidz

The Voidz is a project by The Strokes’ frontman Julian Casablancas, delving into more experimental sounds. The band merges indie rock with inventive and unconventional musical styles, offering a fresh take on Casablancas’ artistry.

18. Boredoms

Boredoms , a Japanese band, are famous for their wild live shows and genre-blending music. Their album “Super æ” showcases their unique mix of noise rock and experimental sounds, captivating audiences worldwide.

19. Animal Hospital

Animal Hospital is recognized for their ambient textures and experimental compositions. Their album “Shelf Life” highlights their ability to create immersive and innovative musical experiences.

20. The Red Krayola

The Red Krayola were pioneers in the psychedelic and experimental rock scenes of the 1960s. Their album “God Bless The Red Krayola” showcases their groundbreaking and avant-garde approach to psychedelic rock.

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Welcome to the year-end edition of Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, in which we’ve picked 12 of our favorites from 2021. As always, this year was overflowing with great experimental music, from all corners of the globe and all the growing spaces in between traditional genres. Our list, presented in alphabetical order by artist, includes tape loops made from old Christian albums, 2000-year-old Chinese lutes, virtual lockdown collaborations, and field recordings that vary from the documentary to the fantastical.

Michèle Bokanowski Rhapsodia / Battements solaires

Decades of writing for film, TV, and live performances have helped veteran French composer Michèle Bokanowski develop a unique knack for injecting narrative into abstract sounds. On Rhapsodia / Battements solaires , drama abounds: the 17-minute “Rhapsodia” pulses with purpose, while side two’s “Battements solaires,” the soundtrack to her husband’s film of the same name, offers an immersive atmosphere, with distinct sonic events—loud sounds, cuts to silence, swelling notes—forming a bigger arc, and giving a full sense of how Bokanowski can turn ideas into music.

Nina Dante + Bethany Younge Lizard Tongue

The weedy music of New York-based duo Nina Dante and Bethany Younge sounds like field recordings translated into cartoons. There are all kinds of environmental sounds used on Lizard Tongue , as the pair rattle wood, shake rocks, crack branches, and stretch their own voices, and it all sounds more fantastical than natural. This music isn’t just about humor; all types of emotions are conjured along the way. But Dante and Young bring unpredictable playfulness to even the scariest parts, making Lizard Tongue a wild ride that always lands safely.

Crazy Doberman Everyone is Rolling Down a Hill

On Everyone is Rolling Down a Hill , the sprawling collective Crazy Doberman continue to explore the fuzzy overlaps between damaged rock, sputtering noise, primitive free jazz, and other ecstatic, unhinged sounds. The Morricone-on-speed dramatics of “murro egg robber hero” and the Krautrock-leaning journey of “inverted pyramids slowly projected from the firmament” manage to sound both unfettered and efficient. Crazy Doberman’s resistance to genre makes them proud outsiders, but it also puts them in a venerable lineage with label-dodgers like Oneida , The Dead C , and Trumans Water .

Marsha Fisher New Ruins

To make New Ruins , Minnesota’s Marsha Fisher culled through old Christian records collected from thrift stores while she lived in Nebraska. Creating tape loops from all this religious music while also playing modular synthesizer, Fisher made music that lands far from its sources sonically, but still seems imbued with the devout spirit of the originals. On the opening title track, buried voices hum and moan, while on “Prayer” trembling oscillations blur into wordless hymns. Most compelling is 17-minute closer “Clouds Over Shoemaker Marsh,” which transforms opening low tones into a high-pitched drone that parts the skies.

Seth Kasselman UV Catamaran

In 2014, after living in Los Angeles for 17 years, Seth Kasselman moved to Arizona and spent four years recording the pieces on UV Catamaran . The resulting four tracks, filled with mysterious sounds, tonal shifts, and lots of forward motion, reflect both the disorientation and optimism of big life changes. Each piece touches on water themes, as Kasselman uses actual underwater recordings to express the feelings of drift and float that a move can create. Kasselman funnels his themes into a rich sonic palette: take “Long Time Machines,” in which murky synth tones give way to atonal saxophone, then cut hard to a monstrous drone, like a map of the way time shapes the mind.

Charmaine Lee KNVF

The human voice gets stretched, distended, and detonated in the music of New York City’s Charmaine Lee . Using “microphones of varying fidelities, contact mics placed on the throat, and amplified hair combs,” Lee creates tactile pieces that mimic the inner workings of not just her larynx, but every part of her body. Many of her sounds are arranged in unpredictable patterns that veer from repetition to entropy, but KNVF ’s best tracks emerge when Lee focuses on one sound like a scientist with a microscope. Take “Market Slip,” where a short lip smack recurs in varying lengths and pitches, as if Lee is reading an entire dictionary in morse code.

Chloe Yu Nong Lin Pi Sound

On her debut album Pi Sound , Chloe Yu Nong Lin explores the pipa, a Chinese lute created almost 2000 years ago. Lin herself was born in Taipei and currently resides there, but Pi Sound was recorded at the end of a three-year stay in Chicago. She used her experiences in both places to create a distinctive approach to electro-acoustic improvisation. Using the pipa ’s reverberant aura, Lin makes each track sound like the shape of the room it was played in. Her pieces feel present and immediate; during the rattling “Between” and the chiming “Still in the Ghost Month,” you can practically touch Lin’s strings. In the process, she finds emotional resonances that reach beyond the specific tones of her instrument.

Annea Lockwood Becoming Air / Into The Vanishing Point

Legendary composer and sound artist Annea Lockwood ’s latest work demonstrates how her musical approach remains so fertile for collaboration. On the A side, “Becoming Air,” she works with trumpet player Nate Wooley to achieve “disorderliness…in its magical sense of allowing something outside of you to unfold in its own way.” Over 20 minutes, Wooley’s breaths and bursts are disrupted by Lockwood’s manipulations. On side B, Lockwood converses with New York ensemble Yarn/Wire in reaction to news of global insect species loss, merging nature sounds into subliminal territories. Both pieces contain so many different shifts that they elude description, unlocking a realm to which Lockwood seems to own the only key.

Norman W. Long BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN

A few years ago, a nature trail opened in the Southeast neighborhood of Chicago where sound artist Norman W. Long lives. He planned on leading soundwalks there, but due to lockdown orders, the most he could do was walk by himself. He recorded these walks for his latest tape, BLACK BROWN GRAY GREEN . On the aurally-immersive 20-minute “SOUTHEAST LIVE 2019,” he reveals an area filled with housing, factories, and abandoned space, while “Marsh Filter” and “Recovering Landscape Community” serve as both documents and meditations on the human disruption of nature. It’s a lot to take in, but Long is a master at absorbing the world and delivering something just as big in return.

Rambutan parallel systems

During pandemic isolation, Eric Hardiman—who records as Rambutan —asked 69 different musical comrades to send him audio material, which he then layered and mixed into a series of 33 collages. He envisioned each set of contributions working together like a virtual group, and the tracks do have a surprising cohesion, as if the participants are telepathically communicating across space and time. Each piece is a closed system with its own style and logic; as the album progresses, drone, noise, ambience, heavy rock, and free improv all rub up against each other. By the end of parallel systems ’s 180 minutes, these tracks become part of a family tree whose branches envelop the globe.

Tears|OV Pluto’s Return

Tears|OV ’s aural concoctions float between music and sound art; songs and collages; literal meaning and impressionistic abstraction. Pluto’s Return ’s closest parallel is Negativland ’s mix of samples and loops (plus lots of humor: Check out how “Send in the Clowns” includes cheesy synth takes on the titular classic). But whereas Negativland usually crafts short songs, this trio of sound artist Lori E. Allen, cellist Katie Spafford, and illustrator Deborah Wale fuse everything into one stream of consciousness, with the surreality of a vivid dream.

Xïola Yin Self-Contained Illusion (The Peak)

France’s Aloïs Yang, who works in visual, sound, and performance art, calls his project, Xïola Yin , “the opposite yet not contradicting side of Aloïs Yang.” That may provide a clue to the title of his new tape, Self-Contained Illusion (The Peak) , which feels like a hermetically-sealed fantasy world filled with alien sounds and cosmic echoes. Yang finds motifs in hyper-repetitions looped through each other like shoe strings twisted into knots. The words “joy” and “madness” also pop up in song titles here, marking the wide parameters of Xïola Yin’s music, where happiness feels crazy and vice versa.

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10 Essential Proto-punk tracks

Forty years ago, Patti Smith released her debut album Horses , an album that took the rebellious spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, infused it with poetry and fed it through a filter of chaos and pure energy. It helped launch what we now know as punk rock, and Smith earned her place in history as the Godmother of Punk. But Smith was just one of many important artists that helped shape punk, its origins going back at least a decade earlier with the rise of garage rock in Detroit and the Pacific Northwest, and in the cranked-up distortion of British invasion bands like The Kinks and The Creation. Here’s our look back at that brief but promising decade that molded punk rock into the sound that it became, with 10 essential proto-punk tracks.

The Pacific Northwest has proven to be an epicenter of guitar-driven noise time and time again, with each new generation finding a way to exorcise angst into something catchy and exploding with energy. Long before The Muder City Devils, Mudhoney or The Wipers put their own artful spin on high-BPM fuzz, The Sonics reigned as kings of American garage rock. Their debut album Here Are the Sonics!!! provided an early template for punk rock that hasn’t really changed all that much. “Psycho” is structured pretty much like the rock ‘n’ roll of the early ’60s and 1950s, but noisier, wilder and with a lot more screaming. And that’s more or less what punk is, when you get right down to it. Take out the saxophone, turn up the fuzz a little, and you’ve just about got The Ramones. – JT

Like many of the songs on this list, it’s hard to believe “Shut Up” is from its respective decade, its energy channelling a raw power and aesthetic years ahead of its time. But while Washington-based contemporaries The Sonics did so with a loud, boisterous take on garage rock, playing the genre as aggressively and as fast as possible, The Monks were among the first to play with the dark, experimental vibes that would become central to many of punk’s subgenres. In fact, in many ways, “Shut Up” feels like a post-punk song, its dark energy and off-kilter, subdued vocals giving off more than a few gothic vibes. This is the attitude that, paired with the dynamic power of their faster-playing peers, would form the whole picture of punk rock. – ATB

The commonly accepted year in which punk broke was 1977, but the sound of it existed long before there was a name for it. Los Angeles’ Love, whose sound was eclectic well beyond any one particular style or genre, pretty much perfected a swinging, swaying, rollicking punk rock prototype with their 1967 single “Seven & Seven Is,” a highlight from their album Da Capo , released that same year. It’s all big riffs and bombast, Arthur Lee’s infectious nonsense refrain, “ Boom-bip-bip, Boom-bip-bip/ YEAH! “, and a gigantic explosion to top it off. It’s raw and rebellious, and it arrived 10 years ahead of schedule. – JT

Velvet Underground’s music straddled a pretty wide canyon of influences, but their influence on punk music becomes evident on any track that showed Lou Reed et al’s interest in gritty, honky-tonk rock. A song like “White Light/White Heat” is classic rock and roll through a bizarre, twisted filter, and the minute-long outro of noise would become a classic staple in punk music. The band’s record of the same name would also be the last to boast John Cale as a member. Cale would go on to become a noteworthy producer in the realm of proto-, post- and just plain old punk, with credits as wide-reaching as The Stooges, Patti Smith, Modern Lovers, Jesus Lizard and the Happy Mondays. – ATB

The studio recordings of MC5 showcase a band that was aiming somewhere between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones—feelgood rock with a slight political edge. But the band’s live recordings, especially those from their 1969 debut, show the band’s intense stage performance in full view. “Kick Out The Jams” is an undeniable preview of the punk rock fury to come, showing exactly how devastating the typical rock format can be when the gloves are taken off. It’s three minutes of furious, ear-melting goodness. – ATB

The Stooges were punk before punk was punk. We could argue about this point if need be, but it warrants little debate. Fronted by Iggy Pop, a manic figure driven by sexual energy and pure nihilism, The Stooges created a sound loud and intense enough to launch a movement of its own. It’s encapsulated wonderfully in their 1973 track “Search and Destroy,” which is so raw and furious that it pretty much trumped any other music at the time in terms of sheer decibels. “ I’m a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm ,” sneers Pop, echoing a sort of self-destructive, directionless perspective of youth at the time. It feels dangerous, as much now as it did then, but it feels good. It’s three-and-a-half minutes of pure catharsis. – JT

Just one step away from straight up being The Ramones, New York Dolls played a loose, trashy take on classic rock ’n’ roll, often while cross-dressing. What’s probably the most punk rock about New York Dolls is that they refused to behave in a way that was suitable for record studios at the time, even though it’s quite possible their music would have been accessible to a more mainstream rock audience at the time. “Trash” is, in some ways, an ode to this quality of the band. They might be a little trashy, but don’t expect them to change that any time soon. – ATB

Patti Smith’s early work straddled the burgeoning punk scene of New York City and the world of beat poetry, swirling together to create something that was delightfully difficult to put a finger on. “Free Money” is one of the original cuts from her debut Horses , and it boasts some of the record’s most purely intense instrumentals alongside some of Smith’s more loose, stream-of-consciousness vocal work. It’s a reckless abandon that would become synonymous with the hardcore scene, and its commentary on greed are just a few steps away from the critiques of capitalism that her more explicitly political followers would later pen. – ATB

“ I’m in love with rock ‘n’ roll, and I’ll be out all night .” It’s hard to find a statement that more succinctly captures the joy of being young, having a car and just enough autonomy to feel more alive than you ever have. Boston’s The Modern Lovers played rock ‘n’ roll; that’s what proto-punk, or even simply punk, really is when you get down to it. And on a purely lyrical level, “Roadrunner” might as well be Springsteen, Jonathan Richman’s verses focused on nothing more than the pure joy of “going faster miles an hour… with the radio on.” There’s a streamlined, raw repetition about it that sets it apart, however, the sheer momentum of it seemingly mimicking the feel of speeding down the highway. It’s almost zen. – JT

The real national anthem of Cleveland. “Final Solution” was co-written by Peter Laughner, the firebrand of Cleveland’s unusually revolutionary ‘70s scene who consumed the exhaust of rock and roll and spit it back out until his death at 24. Originally performed by Laughner’s primal punk band Rocket From the Tombs, he brought it over to Pere Ubu, which he formed with David Thomas in the wake of RFTT’s breakup. Their 1975 recording became their second single. Essentially a more contaminated “Summertime Blues” down to its lyrical pulse, “Final Solution” is an almost necromantic song without peer or resemblance. Maybe it’s because Pere Ubu were physically quarantined in a city the 1970s were not especially kind to, or maybe because they were temporarily stranded between the bloat of prog rock and the outbreak of punk. Thomas’ depiction of a disaffected teen is truly gawky saga with wittily awkward complaints (“ The girls won’t touch me ‘cause I’ve got a misdirection/Living at night isn’t helping my complexion ”). Scott Krauss’ lumbering drums conspire with Allen Ravenstine’s rubber robot synths to suggest that the singer’s a victim of applied science, but Laughner’s unexpectedly blithe melodies in his closing guitar solo gives the hero a brighter way out than Laughner eventually got. – PP

Nice list, but missing possibly *the* best one: The Neon Boys – That’s All I know (Right Now.)

https://vimeo.com/9445389

This track is a blueprint for punk and alternative music. The band featured Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell, and Billy Ficca. Although their time period was brief their legend and influence continues to inspire bands and fans of this genre.

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1 . Liquid Liquid - Optimo

2 . The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

3 . Radiohead - Kid A

4 . Glenn Branca - The Ascension

5 . Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica

6 . Boredoms - Super æ

7 . The Red Krayola - God Bless The Red Krayola And All Who Sail With It

8 . Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets

9 . Sonic Youth - EVOL

10 . The Red Crayola with The Familiar Ugly - The Parable Of Arable Land

11 . Can - Tago Mago

12 . Public Image Ltd. - The Flowers of Romance

13 . Pärson Sound - Pärson Sound

14 . Radiohead - KID A MNESIA

15 . Liquid Liquid - Liquid Liquid

16 . Swans - To Be Kind

17 . Tortoise - Standards

18 . Half Japanese - 1/2 Gentlemen / Not Beasts

19 . liquid liquid - successive reflexes.

20 . Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band - Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band

21 . A.R. Kane - 69

22 . Battles - Mirrored

23 . U.S. Maple - Acre Thrills

24 . Blur - 13

25 . Tom Waits - Blood Money

10 obscure but brilliant noise rock albums you need in your life

London noiseniks USA Nails select 10 essential but underrated noise rock albums everyone should hear

The first entry in this list begs an important question – and one that's nigh on impossible to answer in any definitive sense: what is noise rock, anyway? 

As much an ethos or attitude as anything you can pinpoint musically, noise rock has morphed and evolved over the years, from its roots as a post-punk spin off to decidedly modern experimental dirge. It's forced itself into uncomfortable relationships with unsuspecting genres – hardcore, punk rock, jazz – to unsettle and upend those scenes and, often, spawn new degenerate subgenres all of their own. Noise rock? It's all about the feeling , man. 

As a scene which has barely poked its head out from the underground, it figures that many of its best records are still largely undiscovered gems. London-based four-piece USA Nails – who themselves are poised to release a noise-rock classic in the making in the shape of upcoming album Character Stop – are well-placed to shine a light into the scene's overlooked corners, particularly where the UK's untapped underground scene is concerned. Here, they pick 10 essential noise rock records which, if you haven't heard yet, you really should. 

The Fall - This Nation’s Saving Grace (1985)

Steven Hodson (guitar and vocals): "Are The Fall noise rock? What is noise rock anyway? I always thought we were a pop band. This record is one of their best in my opinion. Bombast completely rips. There will never be another Fall but at least they made a ton of records, each great in their own special way."

Girl Band - The Talkies (2019)

Thomas Brewins (drums): I’m a big fan of all Girl Band releases to date but I’ve chosen their latest, The Talkies, as it incorporates everything I like about them. This album makes my head think I’m watching a horror gore movie but tells my body to dance to disco. I feel as though I’m at a festival in-between the techno tent and the experimental noise tent and the beans just kicked in. Prefab Castle is one of my favoured tracks, building up for two minutes before you hear any rhythm at all. You think it’s just a little soundscape album filler but then turns into a tribalistic rhythmical loop finishing with a techno rave.

Shoulderblades is also a top track. When it drops half way through to that rumbling bass/noise or whatever it is, it’s banging. The album has a real cinematic vibe to it, almost like a twisted psychological thriller score with a drum beat. And thats just fine by me.

Destruction Unit - Deep Trip (2013)

Daniel Holloway (bass): I was listening to Destruction Unit a lot around the start of USA Nails. When we were recording [2016 album] No Pleasure , this was one album that kept popping up for me when talking about what production values we were interested in. I watched them at [London venue] The Shacklewell Arms with [former USA Nails drummer] Matt Reid, we both agreed that it was like standing next to a jumbo jet engine mic-ed up.

Pre - Epic Fits (2007)

Gareth Thomas (guitar): Production on this record is perfect. Wonderfully abrasive and so tasty in those high-mids. Pacing is spot on, nice weird jangly drawn out middle-8s, full on noise-noise and hooks. Sounds like the wheels are about to fall off at any second but of course, they do not. There were a few bands/albums on or around Skin Graft Records at this time I could have picked, but I recently re-discovered this record so it's been at the front of my mind for a few weeks now.

The Men - Leave Home (2011)

Tom: Straight up rock'n'roll rock-noise rock-punk'n'roll. The album is relentless and I hadn’t heard much like it at the time of its release. It's a wall-of-sound incorporating some great riffs and heavy-ass drums and all that good stuff, all seemingly going through one hundred distortion pedals. The mix has been pushed as far as it can go without destroying the musicality of the tunes. I never got the chance to see them perform live but the producer’s done such a job on it that I feel like I did. () , Bataille and Night Landing are my standout tracks, but this is one of those albums that I can play from start to finish and probably just repeat it again. Oh, and it gets me really pumped to go out and get drunk. That’s probably the only negative of the entire album.

Blacklisters – Adult (2015)

Steven: I may be biased as I am in the band, but this was recorded before I joined. Bangers throughout. Simple and Massive. Old label mates of mine from the Brew Records days, when Leeds produced all the best bands.

Guttersnipe - My Mother The Vent (2018)

Gareth: I saw these at Supernormal Festival one year, and also shared a bill with them doing my solo garb and was completely blown away both times. Irreverent, fluid, deconstructed, visceral, unique, blah blah, I'm terrible at this, etc, etc. Probably best to just give it a listen. Guttersnipe are the kind of act that inspire me to take a step back and re-evaluate how I approach music and sound and creativity and life in general.

Bo Gritz - Tape EP (2018)

Dan: Best band going in London I reckon. Steven and I released this on our label SAD tapes. Have loved this band from the start and they rip live as well. Finn has a way with vocals and I like them a lot. 

Melt Banana - Cell-Scape (2003)

Gareth: A real noise-rock fan would probably cite an earlier album as Cell-Scape is pretty much Melt Banana's Nevermind . It's definitely my favourite of theirs though – the sounds in it are really diverse, really dissonant. It's pretty ludicrous all told, and almost feels like it's parodying itself in places. Annoys all the right people too. 

That Fucking Tank - Document Of The First Set (2004)

Steven: I saw this band at one of the Out Of Spite festivals in Leeds and they played this record in full. At the time, I hadn’t seen a two-piece band, playing instrumentals. A couple of years ago, it seemed like every gig we played had a two-piece, but there seemed to be something genuine and fun about Tank. A great band that paved the way for a load of DIY music in the UK.

USA Nails' new album Character Stop is released on October 23 via Hex Records/Bigout Records and is available for pre-order now

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Briony is the Editor in Chief of Louder and is in charge of sorting out who and what you see covered on the site. She started working with Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Prog magazines back in 2015 and has been writing about music and entertainment in many guises since 2009. She is a big fan of cats, Husker Du and pizza.

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The best post punk bands in 2022

A guide to the experimental post-punk boom.

There’s a new movement of artists emerging. A new wave of experimental, young bands that are pushing boundaries of noise, vocal delivery and guitar sounds to create something that sounds original, new and exciting.

2021 has seen the rise of a new wave of post-punk, mostly in the UK and Ireland but also stretching further afield to America. Almost at arms with the burgeoning neo-psychedelic scene in Australia, heralded by the meteoric rise to fame of Kevin Parker’s  Tame Impala  and pushed further by the next-in-line to the throne  Pond , the wildly prolific  King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard  and the blazing guitars of  Psychedelic Porn Crumpets , bands have responded with their own new mantra of creative ideas. 

Taking influence from  Slint , progressive rock and reflecting on their own place in the new post-Brexit, post-Trump and living-with-Covid stratosphere we find ourselves in, these bands are creating experimental post-punk which will hopefully provide us catharsis, companionship and excitement in the gradually weirder world we find ourselves in.

Last year, a new breed of post-punk groups provided a word-heavy and pointed guitar soundtrack to our lockdown and eventual emergence from it. They hit the right notes for many with their bleak outlook on modernity and introspective reflections on how we, as individuals, can feel about it. Many of the bands that we wrote about last year have taken the world by storm. 

Dry Cleaning ’s acclaimed  New Long Leg  was followed by their even more acclaimed  Stumpworks  (despite the jarring album cover) in October of 2022.  Black Country, New Road  evolved again despite the loss of their lead singer and, as someone who was privy to a live performance the all new songs they’ve written, are still going strong with their honed sense of musicality.  Fontaines D.C.  have bolstered their first two albums with a third of incredibly moving and gloomy bangers , making them a must-see live show if you get the opportunity.

However, the wheels of music keep turning and us lucky lovers of post-punk are always receiving new gifts. The most exciting thing about this year is the amount of genre-twisting there’s been in the scene. All the bands in this article are wildly different from each other, but all have that strong foundation of solid post-punk songwriting underneath them. On that foundation, each has built music to their own design.

1. black midi –  The Heralds

Erupting from seemingly outer space at the time,  black midi  arrived on their debut album  Schlagenheim  in 2019. From the opening bombshell of  953 ,  black midi  set the scene for the emergence of experimentalism in post-punk music. Morgan Simpson provides the unfettered potency of the band with thunderous, relentless and utterly brilliant drumming which allows the rest of the band to go wild with off-kilter guitar sounds, almost locked-in riffs and Geordie Greep’s bizarre but compelling talk-singing. 

With the release of their second album  Cavalcade  on May 28th 2021, sadly without the wonderful guitar-work of Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin (here’s to hoping he’s finding the time away from the spotlight is helping him find some peace), they’ve embraced progressive rock even more than before. From the singles released, the addition of the saxophone and violin to the controlled cacophony they create only adds to their style. Their arrival heralded the coming of these new and exciting bands.

black midi Standout tracks

2. black country, new road –  the scientists.

Black Country, New Road  are good friends with black midi, having played a show entitled Black Midi, New Road before the release of their debut album  For the first time . It’s only natural then, that the development of both bands has been symbiotic in nature, with  black midi ’s  Cavalcade  looking to involve saxophone and violin, both of which are mainstays in  Black Country, New Road ’s arsenal. However, they differ in approach.  Black Country, New Road  use their seven person lineup to bring a variety of soft and loud sounds to their display, while utilizing jazz elements to provide an experimental edge to the interesting base sounds they have.

On  For the first time,  they provide two differing but key sounds. First is the untamed paranoia that circles around  Science Fair  and most of  Sunglasses . This side of them brings noisy guitars and talk-sung vocals that appear in most of these bands. It’s a joy to hear them play, unencumbered by any preconceived notion of what a British post-punk band should sound like. On the flipside, there is their softer, more ethereal sound. This opens up  Sunglasses  and is in its prime during  Track X . Vocals are pushed back in the mix to allow subtle instrumentation to take center stage. Gently repeating melodies circle the air around the track. However, although gentle, these sounds shouldn’t be confused with easy listening. In fact, most of their work is challenging and rewarding.

Black Country, New Road Standout tracks

• Science Fair

3. Fontaines D.C. –  The Purists

Hailing from Dublin, Republic of Ireland,  Fontaines D.C.  deliver angular, guitar-driven post-punk on their two albums released to date. The first of which was the Mercury Prize nominated  Dogrel  in 2019. Creating deceptively complex post-punk based on traditional rock sounds channeled through two guitarists, the main feature of  Fontaines D.C.  are the vocals. Whereas in days gone past, singers were encouraged to lose any accent or worse Americanise their singing, singer Grian Chatten wears his Irish roots loud and proud. Another band using talk-singing to deliver complex lyrics, Chatten delivers them steadfast and at high speed.

This continued on the sophomore album  A Hero’s Death , delivered only just over a year later. Less jagged, equally as fearless and just as powerful as its predecessor, the first we heard of this album was through the title track as it’s first single. Built on the blueprint of  Boys In the Better Land from Dogrel , with  A Hero’s Death  repeating positive phrases like a mantra. However, dig beneath the surface and you’ll find that these lyrics are based on the repetitive nature of advertisements.  Fontaines D.C.  hold depths upon depths in their songwriting, and we’re all the better for it.

Fontaines D.C. Standout tracks

• Boys In the Better Land
• A Hero’s Death
• Televised Mind

4. Dry Cleaning –  The Narrators

The first thing you notice about  Dry Cleaning ’s signature style is the nonchalant vocal delivery. Most of these bands deliver clever, introspective lyrics along the route of spoken word poetry. Whether it’s closer resembling  Slint ’s signature storytelling best observed in their  Spiderland  classic  Washer  or whether it’s more akin to true spoken word poetry brought closest to prominence by John Cooper Clarke’s kitchen sink drama’s lighting up suburban life, either method has been shunned for traditional singing in recent times. However,  Dry Cleaning ’s Florence Shaw delivers her eloquent words with dispassioned relatability. 

Scratchcard Lanyard from their debut  New Long Leg  has become their calling card. The lyrics calmly and surreally talk about “a Oslo bouncy ball” and mention mundane things with a hint of emotion (“I’ve come to join your knitting circle”) on the backdrop of the dub bassline provided generously by Lewis Maynard, which provides a welcome outlet to avoid  Metal Box  by  Public Image Ltd.  and the lothesome comments and actions of one John Lydon. The highlight of their debut is  Strong Feelings , where the dub bassline shines through and Shaw’s lyrics give empathy and understanding for most millennials (“Just an emo, dead stuff collector”). The song creates a narrative that everyone can get some milage with. A very clever band that, considering this is their debut, gives us all hope that we can all be heard, understood and given space to just be.

Dry Cleaning Standout tracks

• Strong Feelings
• Scratchcard Lanyard
• Every Day Carry

5. Squid –  The Thrillers

As of writing this article, countless articles describing  Squid  to be as the most exciting band of 2021 have been published, and consider their debut has been out for only a single month. Let nobody disregard the thrill of a new band with killer songs and a huge potential. Hailing from Brighton, England which is home to fledgling businesses and some of the most progressive people in the UK (Brighton Pride is the biggest in the UK), it’s not surprising that  Bright Green Field , one of the cleverest and untamed debut’s since  Wolf Alice ’s  My Love Is Cool , comes from a band hailing from such a city. Not only that however, the saxophone on some parts of this album has been provided by  Black Country, New Road ’s Lewis Evans, further showing the collaborative nature of this new scene.

Bright Green Field  was announced with the single  Narrator  featuring Martha Skye Murphy. Drummer Ollie Judge provides the incredibly visceral lead vocals for  Squid . He has a vocal range that provides nonchalant narration, raw emotion and frantic paranoia. Promises held from debut EP  Boy Racer  have more than materialised on their debut. However, this promise is best realised on the stunning third single  Pamphlets . If there is any track to listen to in order to best describe the exciting new scene, this is the song. From “There are flagpoles firmy in my sides”,  Pamphlets  hits an incredibly danceable stride. The drumming is so feverish you can’t help but tap along, the vocals are so captivating you can’t help but be hooked by them, the clever guitar play is so catchy you can’t help but admire the technicality. A euphoric listen.

Squid Standout tracks

6. shame –  the evolvers.

On their debut album in 2017  Songs of Praise ,  shame  gave us traditional post-punk in the guise of classic British guitar based music. Although a good benchmark, it wasn’t the strongest statement of intent. Songs like  Concrete  solidified that the band knew how to make a good song, although it was lacking in personality. However, in their 2021 release  Drunk Tank Pink , they have truly found their voice. On  Alphabet , singer Charlie Steen barks out lyrics that now start to sound like how the band doesn’t want to be perceived over altogether more interesting instrumentation. It’s technical and heavy hitting.

They hit even harder on  Snow Day , which is the closest related to the darker aspects of  Black Country, New Road  and  Squid . Talk-singing is back again, and the rawness of the delivery is even better in this format. Steen spits out the words like they tasted as foul on his tongue, as the imagery they string together to the listener. With the backing, it sounds like a recount of a distressing tale at home in any drama. It’s a wonderfully intense listen. They have evolved from a band that can wonderfully utilise sounds that have come before them to one that can take it a step further and use it as a basis for much more visceral songwriting.  Drunk Tank Pink  has the opposite effect of the paint colour it’s based off. It riles you up.

Shame Standout tracks

7. goat girl –  the dreamers.

Goat Girl  are at their best when they make smooth, danceable post-punk. Dreamy harmonies, smooth synthesisers and clever, technical drumming are the hallmarks of this group. On 29th January 2021, they released an album that maximises their strengths. Less angular than their first, eponymous album released in 2018,  On All Fours  delivers fully realised songs with an infectious groove to them. Moving away from the traditional band setup, highlight  Sad Cowboy  starts with a smooth synthesiser playing a very morish melody. What follows is the key guitar line bounced along by a smooth rhythm section. 

L.E.D.’s vocals (real name Ellie Rose Davies) have a drifting, dream-like quality to them. It’s proof, as if it was needed, that jagged vocals are not the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to post-punk.  The Crack  flows like a mountain spring.  Badibaba  is intensely danceable, especially when the catchy chorus kicks in. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s edgeless. Far from it,  Goat Girl  rides the fine balance of smooth and enough bite to hook you in. One of the catchiest releases of the year and a promising signal of intent by a band on their sophomore album.

Goat Girl Standout tracks

8. caroline – the slow & smooth.

Ever found that your normal playlists are too dense and heavy to have on in the background while you study or focus on a project?  caroline  are the solution. Born of the same scene that brought us  Black Country, New Road  and  Squid ,  caroline  take a different tact to the  Slint -inspired post-punk formula. The eight-piece instead decided to go for a smoother approach, more akin to  Talk Talk ’s final two albums.  Good morning (red)  drifts along like a riverboat in August, and provides a relaxing introduction and mission statement by the band.

The best example of their approach is  Dark blue . Utilising a simple stroked guitar rhythm as the backbone throughout the whole piece, the rest of the instrumentation builds and plays around it freely. Lyrically, they again aim for minimalistic and resigned. Vocals aren’t the main feature, instead they’re another melody played alongside the rest of the band. Often, the layers amount up but the songs rarely feel too much. Instead they’re more like a gentle lapping of waves than a storm. Are you a fan of  Black Country, New Road ’s  Track X ? Songs on here like  IWR  and  Good morning (red)  will fit snugly beside it in any playlist.

caroline Standout Tracks

• Good morning (red)

9. Melt Yourself Down – The Bold & Boogying

Saxaphone-forward and instantly danceable,  Melt Yourself Down ’s  Pray For Me, I Don’t Fit In  may be their fourth studio album but it provides their clearest and most cohesive body of work. Using post-punk as an augmentation to their jazz and funk playing, they created the thumping sleeper hit  Balance . The saxophone playing by Pete Wareham is the main feature throughout the track, providing the wonderfully restrained rhythm through the verses only to allow the suspense to be released in the wonderful post-chorus guitar line and the jazz-heavy crescendo concluding the song.

It’s the restraint that’s so admirable in  Melt Yourself Down ’s work. There’s none of the overindulgence that would cheapen the work on their 2022 album, only infectious rhythm and the earned release from careful buildup. The title track is the true highlight of the album. From the opening bars, the rhythm section demands action from your dancing shoes. Then we get the expectedly restrained sax which leads into an unexpectedly fitting synth line that transforms the track into something truly special. It makes the drums feel bolder and the bassline feel stronger. As soon as the chorus comes, your head is bobbing and you’re awaiting the rhythm to transport you again.

Melt Yourself Down Standout Tracks

• Pray For Me
• I Don’t Fit In

10. Walt Disco – The Glam & Glasweigian

Scotland has proven itself to be a powerhouse of music in recent years, giving the world  The Twilight Sad ,  CHVRCHES  and now  Walt Disco . Post-punk as looked through a glam lens, the type of music they make is best categorised by listening to the vocals of James Potter. Their singing style is something akin to The Associates’ Party Fears Two, only far, far better (disclaimer: this writer loathes that song). A prime example of the excellent vocals is  Cut Your Hair , their frantic and unrestrained nature elevating the song to something that is likely a highlight live.

Their songs are varied but all are exciting and bathed in an 80’s neon glow. The opener  Weightless  swims through a sea of synthesisers with a club beat in the background, a statement of intent for the rest of their debut album  Unlearning . The lyrics are very contemporary, with  Weightless  focusing on identity and appearance with the hopeful line of “Was I never my type?” describing the difference between how you view yourself and how others view you succinctly. An exciting, modern and a vital new force in music.

Walt Disco Standout Tracks

• Cut Your Hair
• Drowning In Your Velvet Bed

11. Yard Act – The Witty & Wordy

Leeds born and raised,  Yard Act ’s  Dark Days  EP released in 2021 gave the world a great exhibition of what this band can do. Hits like the EP’s title track and  Fixer Upper  wordily and wonderfully describe life in Northern England and people like Greame (a two-homeowner with a Rover). In February they released their debut album  The Overload , filled with some of the most sarcastically funny lyrics on any album released this year. For example,  Land Of The Blind  stops the song halfway through for a half-hearted magic trick where vocalist James Smith and a willingly donated 50p piece disappear. You can imagine how.

Although more can be done musically on  The Overload  (if they spend as much attention on the music as the lyrics for their next album, it’ll be a world stormer), the places where it all comes together create some of the best moments in post-punk this year.  100% Endurance  is the perfect amalgamation of clever lyrics and fitting music. A cross section of the human condition, instead of lamentation or anger they decide to come from a different angle; acceptance. This is how it is, we might as well enjoy it. Wisdom in the form of dry wit. It’s hippie bullshit but it’s true. 

Yard Act Standout Tracks

• 100% Endurance
• Land Of The Blind

12. Sinead O’Brien – The Poetic & Powerful

Sinead O’Brien ’s take on the genre aims to give the listener a more poetic experience. She wonderfully weaves words throughout her debut album  Time Bend And Break The Bower . The title is a lyric from  Multitudes , the second to last track on the album which is one of the tracks on the album that closely approaches a more true form of poetry. The natural cadence of the words spoken in her natural Irish accent provides a framework for the drums, violins and other accompanying instruments rather than the other way around. It all provides an ethereal experience.

One standout track is  GIRLKIND , an epic of six and a half minutes. The driving rhythm delivers more impact to O’Brien’s words and allows the guitar to do its own thing and provide the melody to complete the song.  There Are Good Times Coming  is the most musical track on the whole album, and it’s all the better for it. The drums are the true hit in this track, never letting up with their machine-gun rhythm throughout the verses, only pausing for the short chorus where they allow O’Brien to really emphasise her words. An intense and a truly unique listen.

Sinead O’Brien Standout Tracks

• There Are Good Times Coming

13. Courting – The Weird & Wonderful

For Liverpool-based  Courting , throwing everything they have at a track is their ticket to success. A stand-alone single released prior to their debut album  David Byrne’s Badside  provided a preview of the driving beat that appears on  Guitar Music . The title is knowingly misleading and gives an insight into the cheekiness of their lyrics. For example, the breakaway single from the album  Tennis  has lyrics such as “You’re a night in the Holiday Inn/I’m a breakfast bar with an unusual toasting conveyor belt”.

The power behind Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s vocals is immediately apparent on  Loaded , a relentless track midway through their debut. In fact, the whole song starts at 200mph and only increases the pace throughout. The end of the song is chaotic, unstoppable and magnificent, and a prime example of  Courting ’s vision. This gives the impression that if they were to try their hand at refining any part of their blunderbuss method to songwriting, they would excel in it. And for a new band, what an exciting position to be in. Let’s hope they make the most of it.

Courting Standout Tracks

14. warmduscher – the sleek & sleazy.

In The Hotspot  is  Warmduscher ’s third album, and they’ve started to get a bit of much-deserved traction. It’s taken them to Glastonbury’s Other Stage slot and an appearance on BBC music stalwart Later… With Jools Holland. Using these platforms, they showcased their own brand of sleezy, grimy and addictive brand of post-punk. As an example,  Twitchin’ In The Kitchen  is a groovy song about a drug overdose. The cheerleader backing vocals are a hit here, providing just the right contrast to the uncomfortable situation (the backing vocalists also appeared with Warmduscher at Glastonbury and looked delightfully bored of the whole occasion).

Lyrically,  Fatso  is as sleazy as you can get with lines such as “Fatso’s got Viagra and Peruvian gold”. Even if you find this unsavoury, the synth sounds and full-fat rhythms are just too infectious to resist. They litter the album like sugar-filled sweets to the point where you can’t help but get invested and strut your stuff. For many years since they started they’ve been championed by various people, mainly those who work for BBC Radio 6 Music, and for good reason. They’re truly a force of nature.

Warmduscher Standout Tracks

• Twitchin’ In The Kitchen
• Disco Peanuts

These are some of the main standouts for this year, however there is even further listening if you so desire.  Wet Leg ’s hit  Chaise Lounge  took post-punk and expanded it to a huge audience with its catchy melodies and fun lyrics. Hull band  LIFE  released their third album honing in on their Humber roots with the raucous  Big Moon Lake  and unstoppable  Friend’s Without Names  on their album,  North East Coastal Town . Toronto based  Deliluh  also released the experimental and haunting, yet danceable  Credence (ash in the Winds of Reason)  from their  Fault Lines  album. It’s been an impressive showing and with evolution this fast, next year could be even more exciting.

A special shoutout for the emergence and glory of this new scene has to go towards producer Dan Carey. He has produced  Shlagenheim  by  black midi ,  For the first time  by  Black Country, New Road ,  Dogrel  by  Fontaines D.C. ,  Bright Green Field  by  Squid  and  Goat Girl ’s  On All Fours . Suffice to say, the sound of experimental post-punk may be provided by the bands in question, but they are honed and brought to their best by Carey. The role of a producer is to bring out the best in an artist, and Carey has done it so well. He deserves just as much recognition as the bands in this article. His vision has curated and created excitement for so many music fans. 

With these bands pushing the envelope, and more not mentioned in this article such as  Viagra Boys ,  Working Men’s Club  and even  Arab Strap  who’s first album in over 15 years fits snugly alongside these contemporary bands, of post-rock and post-punk, it has opened up the palette for new bands to follow in their broad footsteps. A true shot in the arm for guitar-based music.

Black Country New Road black midi caroline Courting Dry Cleaning Fontaines D.C. Goat Girl Melt Yourself Down Shame Sinead O’Brien Squid Warmduscher Yard Act

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