Santa Cruz, CA · hardcore · punk

Scowl

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Kat Moss fronting hardcore that keeps widening toward melody without losing the bite — Santa Cruz's fastest-rising export.

Scowl formed in Santa Cruz, California, in 2019, built around vocalist Kat Moss, guitarist Mike Bifolco, bassist Bailey Lupo and drummer Cole Gilbert, with Malachi Greene on guitar until 2025. The band's first releases were a self-titled EP and a second EP, Reality After Reality..., both put out in the group's founding year.

How Flowers Grow, released in 2021 on Flatspot Records, placed Scowl within the Bay Area hardcore scene: a short, fast record built on breakdowns and Moss's raw delivery. The band's 2023 EP Psychic Dance Routine brought in melodic singing and clear debts to 1990s alternative rock and grunge, a shift that widened the audience while sparking some argument within hardcore circles.

Scowl has toured with acts including Circle Jerks, Negative Approach, System of a Down, Korn, Turnstile, Deftones and Limp Bizkit, and toured Australia with Sunami and Speed in 2023. Live, the band keeps the tempos and pit-oriented structure of its earliest material while making room for its poppier songs.

In October 2024 Scowl signed to Dead Oceans, announcing the deal with a new single, 'Special.' The sophomore album, Are We All Angels, followed on April 4, 2025, continuing the pull toward melody that the Psychic Dance Routine EP had already signalled.

Guitarist Malachi Greene left the band in October 2025. In May 2026 Moss announced that Scowl was stepping back from touring, saying she needed room to breathe. Moss's presence as a frontperson remains central to the band's identity.

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hardcorepunk