The 20 best rock songs right now

Beabadoobee suggests in this song that Tuesday is the worst night of the week to go out on. It’s a good theory but the answer, controversially, is still Saturday.

On April 15 Home Is Where and Record Steer, two of the finest new punk bands to emerge in recent times, will drop a split EP together. The motivation for the project was simple. "[We] wanted to make something unabashedly trans," Home is Where’s Brandon MacDonald said in a statement. "Two trans bands. Songs about trans issues. Cover by a trans artist [Connie Sgarbossa of SeeYouSpaceCowboy]. We wanted to make something for the girls to pop off to.

And here is Record Setter’s contribution for the girls to pop off to.

Dazy’s sugary pop-punk is the perfect compliment to Militarie Gun’s gnarly melodic hardcore. These guys should drop a joint album.

Ethel Cain’s debut album Preacher’s Daughter (Daughters of Cain) is out May 12. This lead single is a murky and brooding chamber ballad filled with lust and darkness.

Soccer Mommy making an album with Oneohtrix Point Never is a fascinating and unexpected combination. Forever drops on June 24 and “Shotgun” is the first taste from the record.

Hannah Judge’s music has a muscular texture that compliments her self-deprecating lyrics. When she sings “I deserve to be/with someone who hurts me/So I’ll spend all my time with myself,” on this new song you know she really means it.” The debut fanclubwallet album, You Have Got To Be Kidding Me, arrives May 20.

Could Long Island’s Koyo be the next hardcore band to break out and get the recognition they deserve? This great new song would certainly suggest so!

It feels a bit off to pick apart the influences of young guitar bands but there is a nice flavor of ESG’s minimal funk running through Horesgirl’s music. The band’s debut album, Versions of Modern Performance, is out June 3 via Matador Records

Scowl made one of the best hardcore albums of 2021 with How Flowers Grow so it’s great to see Kat Moss popping up on Alberta band End Game’s intense new single. This song rips.

Sam Yarmuth, in addition to bein the frontman of Warfare, is the founder of hardcore label Triple B Records. There’s a good chance that label has released at least one of your favorite heavy bands. He’s joined on guitar by Justice Tripp, who you may know from Trapped Under Ice and Angel Du$t, and this song features a guest spot from God’s Hate leader Brody King. King is currently tearing things up wrestling in AEW where his cupboard-like stature is a real bonus. Suffice to say this one is a beast.

Liverpool’s Crawlers share a brutally honest depiction of what a breakdown really looks like in a bid to inject the conversation around mental health with some realism. Vocalist Holly Minto’s anthemic songwriting ensures that her message is buoyed by a raw power befitting its subject matter.

Spill Tab is keeping things jittery and unsettled with her first release since last year’s Bonnie EP. “Sunburn” rattles along nicely, just spiky enough to keep things interesting, with producer Solomonophonic adding to his impressive work with spill tab peers Remi Wolf and Dora Jar.

Chicago band Beach Bunny had a refreshingly big breakout with debut album Honeymoon. It would have been easy for the band to lean into what they knew worked for their TikTok audience and, while new song “Fire Escape” isn’t exactly a reinvention, it feels like a natural step up. Suffice to say this one doesn’t come with a pre-choreographed dance routine.

Stones Throw band Automatic make retro-future music, the kin of thing that would have sounded revolutionary back in the ‘60s and remains trapped in that fascinating window of unrealised possibility. Their new album Excess is due in June.

London band Malady have one eye on the dancefloor with “Round The Bend,” a joyous ode to losing your mind surrounded by your best pals.

There’s a deep groove to “God Is A Reptile” that carries JayWood’s message and also opens up the opportunity to put a saxophone-playing lizard in the video. That’s a chance no artist should ever pass up.

There’s a cool inter-generational thing going on here with HEALTH guiding Vancouver’s teenage post-rock revivalist EKKSTACY through the kind of depressive period he mines much of his material from. The advice may be simple (“Hold on a while… It gets better sometimes”) but it cuts through the darkness nicely.

Sure, why not?