The Menzingers

Out of Scranton, Pennsylvania, The Menzingers grew from the overlapping ska-punk and pop-punk scenes of their hometown when the band formed in 2006. Greg Barnett, Tom May, Eric Keen and Joe Godino trace their lineage to earlier local groups, and their music draws on the Clash, Against Me!, Pixies and the Smashing Pumpkins. Critics and the band themselves describe their approach in plain terms: straightforward punk rock, built on sharp songwriting and no-nonsense energy.

Their self-titled demo from 2006 drew attention from year-end lists, and the full-length A Lesson in the Abuse of Information Technology followed on Go-Kart Records. Chamberlain Waits arrived in 2010 through Red Scare, and a signing to Epitaph Records in 2011 led to On the Impossible Past in 2012, which earned Album of the Year votes from Absolutepunk.net and Punknews.org. Rented World, After The Party and Hello Exile followed, and From Exile reimagined the last of these in acoustic form in 2020. Their most recent album, Some of It Was True, came out in 2023, and Everything I Ever Saw was scheduled for release on July 17, 2026.