Photo by Kevin

Artist: Dry Socket, the four-piece of Dani, Geoff, Casey, Jose, and Matt (not pictured)

Location: Portland, OR

Buzz: “Tired of being scared, exhausted by their hate! / No longer living to appease and placate!,” screams Dry Socket vocalist Dani on ‘The Chop”, the stark yet blistering opening moments of this year’s sophomore breakthrough, Self Defense Techniques, from the Portland hardcore-punk band. Despite there being sheer silence behind her, she’s loud and pissed off as all hell in a way where her voice does all of the ripping for her before the listen begins churning up heavy gravel in dementedly twisted unease.

Dani and guitarist / bassist Geoff formed Dry Socket years ago, and the band has changed its membership shape across a previous LP and a handful of EPs and splits since 2020 (all eventually collected on their 2025 comp, The First Five Years.) They’ve ultimately landed on a fluid DIY approach in conveying what’s on their brains into splattered thought. Gnarled, noisy rock guitars with the pedal pushed down hard accelerate the damage done as they tear through the current hellscape, as Allen’s vocals contort between snarl and fire-breathing. It’s resulted in one of the year’s most crucially meanest-sounding listens for anyone who isn’t here for hardcore merely for the fashion tourism of it all.

Through leglocks, pressure points, and clenched fists, the band applies them without going easy on anything surrounding the politically fucked and socially abysmal, while being brutally self-accountable for their own fate. “I want to be breakable without being broken / Weep loudly, express rage / I want to breathe without pain or control and still remain,” Allen declares on “Safety On”, only to ominously double-down and make sure the listener hears what they’re saying clearing on the album’s closer, “95%”: “Softness will not serve you here.” This is a loud reminder that unapologetic vulnerability and pure fury are not mutually exclusive.

Sound: A relentless, pounding headache brought on by the world’s mounting evils and the subsequent cannibalizing emotions reacted to accordingly by the human body at max capacity.

Recommended: “The Chop”, “Rigged Survival”, and “Safety On” from their sophomore album, Self Defense Techniques

Fall Tour Dates:

Dry Socket’s Self Defense Techniques is available now on Get Better Records.