New Jersey · punk rock · melodic punk

Banquets

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New Jersey gruff-melodic punk with earnest hooks and a road-worn heart — Menzingers-school singalongs for the beard-and-flannel faithful.

Banquets are a punk band from New Jersey who came up in the early 2010s, part of a wider wave of American groups playing melodic, hoarsely sung punk rock. Rather than one breakout moment, they built an audience through steady touring across the northeastern United States, playing small rooms and building a following one show at a time.

Their songs pair fast, straightforward guitar work with big chorus hooks, sung in a rough voice that favours conviction over range. The lyrics stay on ordinary ground: work, friendship, and staying put rather than leaving, delivered with the kind of plainness that reads as sincerity rather than sentiment.

They released records through independent punk labels, and their self-titled album remains the one most often cited by longtime listeners as the way into the band. More recently they put out a new record, Petty Relics, keeping to the same direct, hook-first approach that defined their earlier work.

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punk rockmelodic punk