25 D-Beat Raw Punk Rippers to Check Out (A Tribute to Kawakami)

Athens has been producing some of the absolute best punk bands lately, and Pissniffers’ recently dropped full-length only confirms it. The cover already sets the mood with its bleak collage work and a band logo that’s pure Shitlickers worship. After a minute-and-a-half instrumental intro, the record rips through just under 20 minutes of no-frills, no-hope d-beat with Greek lyrics that land like bricks. “Τέσσερεις τοίχοι (Four Walls)” and “Φρίκη (Horror)” bring confinement and war trauma to the forefront, while “Σύνθλιψη (Crush)” and “Παγκόσμια αυτοκτονία (Global Suicide)” are all burnout and eco-collapse, packed into tight blasts of relentless d-beat fury. “Αστικό κάτεργο (Urban Prison)” and “Ματιά στην άβυσσο (Stare into the Abyss)” dwell in capitalist realism and the decay of modern life in digital numbness. Longer cuts like “Δούλοι της αλλοτρίωσης (Slaves of Alienation)” stretch out into themes of mass conformity and historical erasure, and closer “Δυσωδία (Stench)” spits at the punk scene’s own poserism and self-indulgence. Classic d-beat all the way through, but what really stands out are those shredded Greek vocals that remind me of the ‘90s Athens crust scene. No hope offered, no light shown. Just a strong contender for d-beat record of the year. Grab it while it’s still hot off the press.

Ignorance’s Nothing Changed EP is an absolute ripper and a strong contender for one of the best recent noise-not-music slabs out there. The Helsinki wreckers already made waves with their 2023 demo, but this six-track 7-inch, out via Iron Lung, Static Shock, and Finland’s Raw Rat Produzioni, takes things to the next level without polishing a damn thing. While the Disclose lineage runs deep, Nothing Changed leans more into the crasher crust direction, drawing more from Confuse, Lebenden Toten, and early Kriegshög’s fried circuitry than straight Kawakami worship. What really hits is the balance: distorted to hell and ugly as sin, but somehow still razor-tight and completely adrenaline-charged. Finland keeps delivering the goods, and Ignorance just threw down the gauntlet with this one.

Barcelona’s punk scene has been on a serious upswing lately, and we’ve got labels like Discos Enfermos to thank for making sure the rest of us can hear it. Dominación’s debut EP Punks Ganan is a standout from this latest wave. An absolute feral, full-force blast of noise-not-music d-beat punk that plants itself squarely in the lineage of Disclose and Discharge, while also nodding to more recent favorites like Physique and Destruct. The drumming is completely unhinged, while Punks Ganan is all wrapped in ultra-distorted bass, fried-to-hell guitar, and angry vocals with political lyrics that I believe are sung in Catalan. Tracks like “Resistencia Y Vida Punk” and “Israel” are already on repeat. Wild, distorted, and absolutely vital, Punks Ganan feels like an instant classic.

Portland’s Siege Fire dropped their debut full-length in 2024, and it rightfully found its way onto a ton of year-end lists. I’m usually a bit behind on US bands, trying to keep pace with the international deluge, but the unmistakable Japanese influence in Siege Fire’s visual presentation, both on this record and their earlier EP, caught my attention without a second thought. Musically though, it’s the drumming that completely floored me. The kit work here is frantic, inventive, and utterly relentless, clearly channeling the rhythmic chaos pioneered by Framtid and Gloom. That same intensity bleeds into their thick, fuzzed-out guitar tone, which aims squarely at the crasher crust school, somewhere between the pulverizing noise of D-Clone and the modern intensity of American bands like Public Acid, Physique, and Kinetic Orbital Strike. It’s violent, loud, and absolutely exhilarating.

Fosgene’s Catabasi is a blistering debut that drags d-beat through the ashes of history and spits it out reeking of black metal rot and apocalyptic fervor. Hailing from Bassano del Grappa in Italy, the band opens with “Golgota”, a trumpet-led dirge that sets the ritualistic tone of the scorched earth to come. What follows is five tracks of raw punk steeped in the cold edge of black metal and classic Italian hardcore, but what really stood out to me is the alchemical thread woven through the songs. “Dissolvi e Coagula”, “Putrefactio”, “Nigredo”—all nodding to the alchemical processes of transformation, decay, and rebirth in both a mystical and socio-political sense. “Putrefactio” is a highlight, merging tremolos and d-beats to depict a non-human plague reclaiming the land, while closer “Leviatano” brings the whole vision crashing down, slowing the tempo into a bleak death march as civilization devours itself.

I was unsure about including Dispose in a piece focused on newer bands, given that they’ve been around since 2008 and are foundational to the d-beat raw punk resurgence of the 2010s. But with the recent release of the Deathcult EP, there’s just no skipping them. Led by Swedish d-beat lifer Nils Kajsajuntti, Dispose have consistently delivered concussive noise punk, and this latest EP is yet another slab of their signature style. Crude, blown-out vocals, distortion pushed to oblivion, and primitive d-beat fury that channels both Shitlickers filth and Disclose’s apocalyptic squall. Alongside Macedonia’s Disease, Dispose helped define the modern d-beat raw punk blueprint, and they constantly prove they’re still leading the charge. A masterclass in punk as sonic annihilation.

Dishönor’s Chain Reaction, Mass Extinction EP is a total scorcher and easily the band’s best release to date. Hailing from Thessaloniki, the band formed around 2019 with roots in now-evicted squats like Terra Incognita and Biologica, and their ethos of resistance bleeds through every second of this record. It’s a relentless d-beat assault laced with metallic crust and amped by an underlying death-grind ferocity, with a few black metal shivers thrown in for good measure. The production is razor-sharp, the vocals coarse and absolutely feral, some of the best I’ve heard in ages, and the drumming is just nuts, blending flawless tempo changes with sheer rhythmic violence. Lyrically, the band doesn’t mince words. As the title suggests, this record is a furious reaction to the global death spiral we’re locked into. “Writing these lyrics, we never thought the end of the world would be in reach of some bureaucrat in a goddamn oval office,” the band said in an interview with Disastro Sonoro. And the message is crystal clear: rise up, reject authority, and fight the madness before it’s too late.

Dissocial might come across like a d-beat caricature at first glance: the dis name, the font, the aesthetics all scream textbook Disclose/Discharge worship, but The War Still Continues proves that execution still reigns supreme in a genre not known with its originality. Hailing from Shah Alam, Malaysia, Dissocial have been at it since the early 2010s, and this EP compiles five remastered tracks from their 2011 Never Ending Holocaust demo. It’s pure, foot on the gas d-beat raw punk: fuzzy guitars, charging drums, and vocals delivered like a rallying cry from the war trenches. There’s nothing flashy or new here, and honestly, there doesn’t need to be. Dissocial are doing exactly what they set out to do: keeping the Kawakami legacy alive and holding the raw punk banner high. Up the Malaysian raw punx!

Dekrepit’s If Ignorance Is Bliss is another raw punk racket incarnate. Ten relentless noise punk assaults that take the “insane noise raids” ethos and run it through a fuzz pedal until it melts. Hailing from Tacoma, Washington, the band fuses the screeching influences of Zyanose and Lebenden Toten with the wall-of-noise barbarity and tortured howls Disclose made infamous. Released in August 2024, this LP is tinnitus-inducing in all the right ways, a nonstop barrage of pure raw punk rage. No frills, no finesse—just blistering, unapologetic obliteration.

I’m a total sucker for the wave of 2010s noise mongers like D-Clone, Nerveskade, Mauser, Folkeiis, and System Fucker. Bands that took the Gloom/Disclose blueprint, pushed everything into the red, and made noise punk feel like a full-on concussive event. Phoenix, Arizona’s Dismay absolutely carry that torch, and their early 2025 release Overthrow is a total scorcher. It’s just three tracks, with one of them being a D-Clone cover (and yeah, that’s my favorite band in this whole blown-out style, so I’m not complaining). Okay, my only complaint is that the EP is too short, and the band’s discography is frustratingly sparse. But what’s here is pure fire, and I’m already desperate for more. Dismay, please don’t keep us waiting.

P.S. They did! Right before publishing this article, Dismay and Dekrepit released a split EP that’s absolutely worth checking out!

Tortür’s Strangers of Peace is a scalding blast of d-beat raw punk, soaked in amp-melting distortion and dripping with fallout. Bridging the prolific Los Angeles and Portland scenes, these six tracks (including a mandatory Disclose cover) blast like sirens over a shattered city. Feedback-wrapped riffs, relentless d-beat battery, and tortured vocals combine into a relentless wall of chaos. Tortür’s vocal delivery and the heavy metal influenced guitar leads remind me a bit of bands like World Burns to Death, but in a cruder form. Originally recorded in 2019 but finally released on tape in the tail end of 2024, Strangers of Peace doesn’t try to reinvent anything, it just stomps the genre’s rotting corpse harder.

Pyrrhic’s Total Hell tape release is six tracks of d-beat raw punk demolition out of Long Beach, California. It doubles down on the obliteration they kicked off with At What Cost? in 2023. This time around, everything’s meaner, tighter, and even more punishing. Buzzsaw riffs and steamrolling rhythms and soaring guitar solos tear through in the finest Scandi/Japanese tradition, while the vocals bark with a distinctly American hardcore ferocity, gruffer and grimier than before. It’s a furious, jagged assault that never lets up, the kind of record that doesn’t ask for permission. It kicks your teeth in for good measure. Total hell, indeed.

P.S. Pyrrhic are currently recording new songs for their upcoming split with the fastcore band Rauss from Kraków, Poland.

Much like the aforementioned Tortür and Pyrrhic tapes, Flesh Trade’s Choking On Blood is another filthy triumph from California’s 1753 label/studio, hurling six tracks of ear-scraping, blood-boiling noise punk straight down your throat. A blistering assault of distorted guitars, slight metallic overtones, and throat-shredding vocals, this tape doesn’t let up for a second. The drumming is exceptionally tight, yet Flesh Trade keep super interesting songwriting without being a carbon copy of the genre. Each track slams like a cinder block to the skull. It’s vicious, relentless, and intentionally over the red, turning feedback into an artform and volume into violence. If you like your punk ugly, noisy, and fast (while still taking unexpected twists), Choking On Blood will leave you grinning through the tinnitus.

Ontario, Canada’s High Anxiety deliver ten tracks of raging d-beat crust on Your Dreams Are Caught In War, and it feels like a chainsaw to the face. The band’s queer and intersectional politics cut with a rusty knife through every burst of distortion, offering blast-sized indictments of power structures, hypocrisy, and betrayal. Tracks like “Entitled Asshole” and “Kill Yourselves” rip into white arrogance, denial, and weaponized victimhood, while “Jesus Scathes” and “Nuke Puker” tear through religious piety and nuclear nihilism with total disgust. “Waste the Rapist” is vigilante justice through a wall of distortion, and “Trans Rights Now!!” is exactly what it says on the tin. Closer “Exit Exist” descends into nihilism, declaring peace only in death. Most tracks barely hit the 90-second mark, but there’s no fat to trim, just relentless pressure. Released by Fiadh Productions and Violet Hour Transmissions, this is a record of total disgust and refusal. Highly recommended.

Across seven blistering tracks, London’s queer punx Traidora channel d-beat raw punk through a filter of political rage, immigrant experiences, and trans survival. The title translates as A Trans Body Full of Hate, but the eponymous track flips the script. This isn’t hate turned inward, it’s a trans body armed, bloodied, and fighting back. Songs like “Tengo un Cuchillo Entre mis Piernas” (I Have a Knife Between My Legs) and “La Rabia Vital” (The Vital Rage) continue this resistance, refusing victimhood and instead demanding vengeance, visibility, and a reckoning. Musically, it’s raw punk to the core. Chainsaw guitars, clattering drums, and cavernous, reverb-soaked vocals that echo like black metal howls through death-rock fog. The Disclose influence is clear, but there’s something mystic and ghostly in Traidora’s sound. Members also play in the blackened queerpunk band Dead Name, and their presence extends far beyond music, actively resisting in a time when trans bodies are under attack from the streets to the state.

Stockholm’s Rawheads first caught my attention with a killer demo during the pandemic, and now they’re back with a proper full-length on Flyktsoda Records that more than delivers on that early promise. Eight tracks of distortion-blasted raw punk mangel in the best tradition, but what truly sets Rawheads apart are the fierce, passionate female vocals and the sharp, politically charged lyrics. The first half of the record is in English, tackling everything from the new dark age (1984 is already here) to class warfare, the ever-present need for more feminism in the punk scene, and clear, unflinching solidarity with Palestine. The second half shifts to lyrics in Swedish, with the standout track “Den Svenska Skammen” (Swedish Shame) calling out the government’s hypocrisy in arms dealing and their betrayal of the Kurds. Raw, urgent, and absolutely essential, Rawheads are making raw punk that matters.

Fattig Aristokrat might not be a new name. These Östersund råpunk manglers have been at it for at least five years. However, their latest EP, Guilty of Apartheid, is the freshest release on this list, and it absolutely deserves the spot. Across six tracks sung in both English and Swedish, the band lays down a heavy barrage of Disclose-style noise worship, fused with hints of ’90s American crustcore and the stomp of classic kängpunk. The EP kicks off with the title track, where cleaner anarcho-style vocals rip into the biggest mass murderer and war criminal today, whose mug also graces the cover. It’s direct, furious, and absolutely unrelenting. Guilty of apartheid, guilty of genocide…

I first came across Sweden’s Förgör through their 2023 split with the aforementioned Dispose, and I’ve been keeping an eye on them ever since. Their latest tape release, out now on Bomberna Faller, really hits the mark. Seven tracks sung in Swedish that instantly take me back to early 2000s bands like Project Hopeless and Slaktattack. What I really like about Förgör is that they don’t try to play faster or noisier than anyone else. They just hammer out steady, crushing kängpunk in the grand tradition of Shitlickers and Anti-Cimex. It’s raw, it’s familiar, and it’s exactly the kind of Swedish boot that still gets its stomping every time.

Japan had Disclose, Brazil has Besthöven; and now Odiär is here to smash those two worlds together in the best way possible. Hailing from Vitória, Brazil, Odiär plays d-beat raw punk like there’s no tomorrow. On Mortos Não Acabarão, they absolutely nail that noise-drenched, apocalyptic vibe. The band’s output is already impressively prolific, but this EP stands out as my favorite so far: short, sharp, and soaked in distortion. What really hits, though, is their commitment for singing in Brazilian Portuguese instead of falling back on broken English—and keeping their lyrics tethered to real political rage and lived realities. That’s d-beat raw punk. Passionate, pissed-off, and proudly noise-not-music.

Indonesia’s HARAA deliver an extreme barrage of noise on their five-track EP that blends the most unhinged ends of hardcore punk with a lethal dose of harsh noise abrasion. This isn’t your average d-beat raw punk fix, it’s raw punk dragged through a gravel pit and left to ferment. Distortion dominates everything, with drumming that hits like a hailstorm and vocals that sound less like singing and more like psychic intrusion. HARAA takes the cues of Japanese and Scandinavian traditions and inject it with a uniquely hellish atmosphere. Mostly fast and abrasive, but also laced with ambient, suffocating moments. Brutal, bizarre, and absolutely brain-drilling.

A War That Never Ends does exactly what it promises. It’s ten tracks of raging Disclose and Besthöven worship coming straight outta Malang, Indonesia. There are no curveballs here, just pure, stripped-down d-beat fury that blasts forward without apology. Tracks like “Damage Your Ears,” “End Genocide in the Middle East,” “Genosida,” and “Stop Fucking Genocide” don’t leave much to interpret, nor they need to. And to top it off, the record closes with a fitting Anti-Cimex cover, sealing the deal on a release that’s as straightforward as it is essential.

Italian tape label Sistema Mortal has been on my radar for a while now, consistently turning out releases that deserve way more attention (like the aforementioned Fosgene). One of their latest standouts comes from local unit Reality, whose seven-track tape hammers out a bleak fusion of classic Disclose-style d-beat raw punk and raw black metal from the North. The guitars buzz with discharged fury, but it’s those reverb-drenched vocals, howled from what feels like some subterranean void, that really push things into darker territory. Reality pose the question “What hell is worse than Reality?” and their music doesn’t offer any comfort. Just a raw, ugly glimpse at the fractured world outside your window. A claustrophobic listen and a hellish ride.

Skotos’s debut might carry a Greek name, but the devastation comes straight outta New York City. Four tracks of razor-wire d-beat raw punk that hit like a nail bomb in a sewer pipe. Αναχώρηση (Greek for departure or disembarkation) sounds like it was recorded inside a collapsing bunker, with blown-out guitars, reverb-drenched howls, and a crustcore rhythm section that never stops charging. Fans of Giftgasattack, Dispose, or Hellish View will feel right at home in this maelstrom. It’s primitive, punishing, and proudly noise-first.

Deprive, not to be confused with the ‘90s Swedish crust punk powerhouse of the same name, were a short-lived d-beat raw punk unit out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and their 2024 demo 4 Track Disbeat Noisebomb might be the only thing we ever get from them. Which is a real shame, because based on the youthful energy beaming out of the photos on the cover, it felt like they were just getting started. Sonically and visually, Deprive channel the primitive aggression of old-school Finnish hardcore while also taking heavy cues from 2010s Japanese noise freaks like D-Clone, particularly their Drop A Noise Bomb and Enjoy D-Beat & Noise!!! EPs. It’s fuzzed-out, manic, and hits with that glorious clatter that makes noise punks lose their minds. Another young band that left too soon.