The best punk and hardcore albums of 2018

The best punk and hardcore albums of 2018: In 2018, the loose genre boundaries of punk and hardcore became more expansive than ever. For decades now, these blanket terms have encompassed a wide swath of sounds, ideologies, and aesthetics. But for most of that time, those distinct subgenres were largely walled off from one another, rarely mingling, much less embracing one another openly. While those genres once felt stratified, over the past few years, bands have been able to blow out the walls and see what happens when those limitations are removed. Similarly, fans have been rewarded with records that offer new inroads to sounds that had long been codified and complacent. While it’s nearly impossible to capture the full breadth of the year in a single list, these albums all spoke to the scene’s bigger trends in one way or another, highlighting the fact that, no matter how many “punk is dead” jokes get made, that sentiment will never ring true.