We undoubtedly live in pretty crappy version of cyberpunk. For already quite some time. Authoritarianism and techno-feudalism are on the rise. Cristo-fascism is blooming. Rights and freedoms are being taken from us every single day. Tech is transformed purely into means of data extraction, surveillance and control. However there does not seem to be any counter-culture forming, no music or art genres with strong messages rising up against all of this. Where is the punk of today?
Does Rise Against count?
I am not a good gatekeeper of “mainstream” or “sellout” etc but this feels like a hostile thread so I guess criticism is incoming.
I feel like the entirety of RA’s discography fits this theme perfectly. The songwriting is part of why I can’t get enough.
(I can’t speak for their recent Ricochet album - the sound quality is poor and lots of fans hate it; we hope we get a rerecording some day. Set aside Ricochet and I feel like you can’t go wrong with anything else of theirs.)
Trying to list deeper cuts that might be good hooks:
Album / Song:
The Black Market / Bridges
The Black Market / People Live Here
Endgame / Disparity by Design
Endgame / Midnight Hands
Endgame / A Gentleman’s Coup
Nowhere Generation / The Numbers
Nowhere Generation / Sudden Urge
EP Nowhere Generation II / Holding Patterns
Wolves / Welcome to the Breakdown
Appeal to Reason / Entertainment
EP / Megaphone
And you can’t go wrong with the back to back tracks “Prayer of the Refugee” followed by “Drones” from the album The Sufferer and the Witness.
Even older albums have good stuff but I didn’t list them since idk if you’d call them “modern”. Tip the Scales + Give It All are good tracks.
Rise Against started out as a Fat Wreck Chords group, and their sound and message hasn’t gone soft since they signed to a major.
And yeah, I’d put this pretty squarely in the punk rock category.
That song is old enough to die in the wars it was written in protest of though. The OP seems to be asking about much newer stuff than 90s/2000s punk.
Rise Against is of course still around and still writing music but they’ve softened their sound a ton in the last 10 years or so. Which like, bands sounds change which is good but also they changed away from what I’m into and their early albums are still amongst my favorite albums of all time