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Sunny War, born Sydney Lyndella Ward, defies genre in her latest album Armageddon in a Summer Dress. The mixture of genres, such as punk, folk, and pop, makes the album feel like a rich experience where you get to taste different things in one place. The Nashville singer-songwriter brings with her a five-piece band, but you don’t feel distracted by this. It’s like listening to one unified sound that is being done by one person.
The album begins suddenly as if it steals your breath away. One Way Train, the first song, starts immediately with no introductory music to prepare you for the lyrics. You find yourself diving deep into the world that is Armageddon in a Summer Dress. Just like War defies genre, she also defies logic in the first song. Despite the heaviness of the lyrics, which explore the current status we find ourselves in where the world is filled with fascists and not enough money to survive, you find yourself swaying to the upbeat music. It feels like a club song in the best way possible. It feels like a defying song. Something you will shout as you march against everything wrong with our world.
Again, War continues defying logic as the next song is the same when it comes to how the music contradicts the heaviness of the lyrics. Bad Times makes you stare at the fact that poverty is beginning to prevail. You face the truth of “I’ve got no money, so I’ve got no power.” And just like you might feel close to the song’s lyrics, you find yourself wanting to say loudly “Bad times, stay away.” How many times does one find themselves wishing for bad times to stay away? Probably a lot more than the ones said by War, but they’ll do.
War finally takes some kind of mercy on you in Rise, which feels like a lullaby you wish someone would sing for you at the end of a bad day. But War’s pessimism, which is understandable in our times, still seeps into the song in a way when she sings “Bad days go and they come / But the good do too, my friend.” We still have to rise because what do we have left if we give up? The sun keeps rising, and War reminds you that you, too, can be like the sun.
A different road appears in front of you as you listen to Ghosts. It’s a road filled with eerie music and longing for someone who is long gone. The song becomes more meaningful when you realize that War wrote it after having hallucinations in her late father’s 100-year-old house because of a gas leak, but the lyrics make you feel like she truly saw ghosts. The music and the electric guitar at the end carry you to the end of the song. For a minute, if you close your eyes, you can believe in ghosts too.
The highlight of the album, to me at least, is Walking Contradiction ft. Steve Ignorant of Crass. It is a lyrical masterclass where you can’t find anything to judge. War and Ignorant’s combined voices can start a revolution if you listen to the song for the right amount of time. It’s a reflection of everything wrong with America and how “the genocide” is funded by Americans’ taxes. I found myself holding my breath when I heard “Your humanity does not outweigh your will to survive” because of how true it is. Walking Contradiction is the kind of song you wish everyone knew about. Just like War and Ignorant’s voices are weaved together, so are the rest of the album’s songs. You can’t help but start making connections in hopes of following War’s vision or coming close to it. So when you hear in this song “We sell labor, we sell hours, sell our power, sell our souls,” you immediately think of “I’ve got no money, so I’ve got no power” in Bad Times.
Walking Contradiction remains with you even as the next song, Cry Baby, starts. It couldn’t come at a better place. War sings about hope amidst pain, and you have pain inside of you after listening to Walking Contradiction. “But you did it once before / I know you’ll do it once more,” War says and you think that this can be adapted to everything the world is going through, including America. History books tell you that nothing lasts forever, and that pain ends one day, and so does War.
In keeping with pain, No One Call Me Baby reminds us of how lonely we can feel. It perfectly captures the essence of loneliness, and you find yourself feeling some kind of loneliness even if you are surrounded by people. “No one calls me baby anymore / I hold my own hand,” War says, but you still feel like she is holding your hand and guiding you through the rest of the album.
Scornful Heart ft. Tré Burt comes next and you feel its relation to the entire album. The voices fading away at the end are just like this album, both stay with you after the end. The echoes remain with you, just like you still feel War’s hand clasping yours.
The heaviness of the album keeps going on in Gone Again ft. John Doe which the album gets its title from. If No One Call Me Baby captures the essence of loneliness, then Gone Again captures the essence of regret. You can almost imagine an old lady regretting her marriage and having kids, and for a moment, you are reminded of your own regrets.
“In your old age as you prepare for death Regret will haunt you ’til there′s no you left It′s bittersweet, but at least it’s the end You catch your breath and then it′s gone again”
Till this point in the album, War managed to handle carefully different emotions such as loneliness and regret. She is weaving a tapestry where there are different colors, but they somehow create something very much complete.
Lay Your Body has its own heavy themes to show off. The longing for someone is a universal feeling, and War seems to know it too well. She asks “Won’t you come back?” and you find yourself thinking of all the times you asked the exact same question. The music feels soft, like pleading with someone to come back, but you can’t show the extremism of your emotions so you don’t scare them away. In a way, I was pleading with War to never end Armageddon in a Summer Dress.
The final song, Debbie Downer, also has upbeat music, and it feels like the perfect end to this journey.
“You’re a negative Nancy A Debbie Downer You’re perpetually antsy An infinite frowner This life’s too short And you’re too crude Please don’t distort Hijack my mood”
“Please don’t distort / hijack my mood,” is the feeling you have left at the end of Armageddon in a Summer Dress. The ending of this song feels definite, like a goodbye to the album. In a way, Debbie Downer ends as suddenly as the album started. You remain holding your breath as all the feelings created by Armageddon in a Summer Dress remain with you.
On April 28th, peach|melba will release Worst Trimester, a song first featured on the iconic queer Netflix minidoc Sperm Donors Wanted.
With blistering lyrics delivered at a rapped pace, the riot grrrl duo explore the gender politics of pregnancy, in their trademark style of both members singing every word together over minimalist bass guitar and driving drums reminiscent of Beastie Boys and Lambrini Girls.
The LA / UK indie punk duo peach|melba write, record and mix everything themselves and say they “swear on your mother’s life to release a new song every six weeks until world peace has been fully achieved.”
The band told us via email that the band actually formed because of the previously-mentioned documentary, which they were asked to do the music for.
“I had a heap of punk songs i’d written over the years that never fit any project and so I hired a friend of mine to help and this became the band which is now releasing songs every six weeks. I’ve been in several bands and it’s always had political messages and this one is no different. Actually I think this one is more stark than any of the other bands I’ve written for because the format is so direct for this band and the music is by far the most simple I’ve ever made.”
“Really one of the key roles my music has always played is alienating people that I dont want to spend time with and getting people into a room that I do want to spend time with. This is super political because I am trying to create space both physically and mentally that people can inhabit where they can speak about their dreams. And since we are living in a world that is mostly a few rich people’s imagination, this act is political as fuck.”
Follow peach|melba on Instagram and to catch their regular song releases, at least until the world is bit better of a place.
I’m DJ General Strike, host of the weekly protest music radio show, Protest Tunes on 91.3 KBCS FM in Seattle, WA. I broadcast 2 hours of radical protest music of all genres and eras every Wednesday at 9 PM. Every quarter, I put together a radio show and playlist of my favorite new protest songs released that season, which I call “molotov hot tracks.” This Spring, saw the release of many great protest songs, most notably songs about the recent British parliamentary election and the upcoming US presidential election, songs against Israel’s ongoing war/genocide in Gaza, and songs of LGBTIA Pride. I aired most of these songs on my show this Wednesday (July 10th 2024), which you can listen to the archive of here. I’ve organized these 40 protest songs by genre below (and alphabetically within genre). You can also listen to all 40 songs on this Spotify Playlist. I hope you all are inspired by these molotov hot tracks!
Folk
Adeem the Artist – White Mule, Black Man
Adeem the Artist, AKA Adeem Maria, a nonbinary pansexual poet, singer-songwriter, storyteller, and blue-collar artist. A seventh-generation Carolinian, they now reside in the hills of East Tennessee. They started their music career performing on cruise ships. This track about the history of racism in Knoxville, TN is off Adeem’s new album Anniversary, released May 3rd.
Apes of the State – Forensic Files feat. Local News Legend
Apes of the State is an independent Lancaster, PA based folk punk band. As a band, they are driven by DIY ethics with a goal of helping as many people as possible with their music. The members are also heavily involved in activism for people recovering from substance use disorder and promoting harm reduction. This single released May 3rd, features fellow feminist folk punk duo Local News Legend, also from central Pennsylvania.
Carsie Blanton – The Democrats
Carsie Blanton is a singer-songwriter and guitarist based in New Orleans. Blanton says she “writes anthems for a world worth saving.” About this single released May 31st, she said it’s a “f— the democratic party for sitting on its hands during a genocide” kind of a song.
Troy Cassar-Daley – Windradyne
Troy Cassar-Daley is an Aboriginal Australian country music songwriter and entertainer. His mother is from the Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung people. Cassar-Daley has released thirteen studio albums, two live albums and five compilation albums over 30 years. Windradyne tells the tale of the Indigenous warrior and resistance leader of the Wiradjuri nation from the 1800s.
Ani DiFranco – New Bible
Grammy winning feminist folk-rock singer-songwriter, author and activist. One of the first artists to create her own label in 1990, she is called ‘the mother of the DIY movement’ and has sold over 5.5 million albums on her own Righteous Babe Records. New Bible is an anti-capitalist song, the 2nd single off her upcoming album Unprecedented Sh!t’, Ani’s 23rd release, just released July 12th.
John Moreland – The Future Is Coming Fast
Moreland is a Singer-songwriter from Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is the opening track off his new album, Visitor, which Moreland recorded at his home in Bixby, Oklahoma, in only ten days, playing nearly every instrument himself, as well as engineering and mixing the album. On “The Future Is Coming Fast”, Moreland laments the “perpetually logged-on life in a time of catastrophe.”
David Rovics – This Is Genocide
Rovics is a Portland, OR based activist singer-songwriter, and anti-Zionist Jew from New York. In order to spread the political messages in his songs Rovics has made all of his recorded music freely available as downloadable mp3 files and all his sheet music and lyrics are available for download too at davidrovics.com. This song against Israel’s war on Gaza is off Rovics new album Bearing Witness, released May 1st.
Aaron Lee Tasjan – I Love America Better Than You
Aaron Lee Tasjan is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, formerly of the bands Semi Precious Weapons and BP Fallon & The Bandits. About this song, Tasjan said “As a queer person living in the southern United States in 2024, I am examining my country’s complexities, contradictions and hard truths in a way that’s conversational.”
Frank Turner – The Leaders
Frank Turner is an English punk and folk singer-songwriter who began his career as the vocalist of post-hardcore band Million Dead, then embarked upon a primarily acoustic-based solo career following the band’s split in 2005. This anti-authoritarian song off Turner’s new album Undefeated, is a rewrite of an old unreleased song of his called Practical Anarchist.
Rock
Joe & The Shit boys – LEGALIZE EVERYTHING
Joe & The Shit boys are a queer vegan indie-rock band “with hardcore vibes”, from the Faroe Islands, (the archipelago between Iceland and Norway). The band formed with the intention of calling out bad behavior in their conservative local music scene, which they describe as “filled with boneless homophobes and meat-eating misogynists.” In this short song they challenge the prohibition of all recreational drugs.
Ferocious Dog – Kleptocracy
Ferocious Dog are an English folk-punk band from Warsop, Nottinghamshire, England. Their fans are affectionately referred to as ‘Hell Hounds’. This song against corrupt politicians in Britain written on the occasion of the British parliamentary elections is the title track off their new album released May 17th.
Melody Angel – Say Her Name
Melody Angel (which is her real name) is a Chicago based blues-rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, vocalist, arranger, and producer. She’s also a cousin of Chicago blues icon, Otis Rush. This song off her self titled 3rd album released June 7th, raises awareness for Black women victims of police brutality.
Scarlet Rebels – Divide and Conquer
Scarlet Rebels are a five-piece melodic rock band from Llanelli, South Wales, formed in 2018. They’re known for their efforts to raise money and collect donations for local food banks and charities. This protest song against Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is from their upcoming album, “Where The Colours Meet” due out August 16th.
R&B/Pop
Emma Donovan – Change is Coming
Emma Donovan is an Aboriginal Australian singer and songwriter formerly of bands the Stiff Gins and the Putbacks. She is a member of the renowned Australian musical Donovan family. She started her singing career at age seven with her uncle’s band, Australian Aboriginal country group the Donovans. This hopeful political song is off her new solo album Til My Song Is Done released April 19th.
The Secret Sisters – If the World Was a House
The Secret Sisters are a singing and songwriting duo consisting of vocalists Laura Rogers and Lydia Rogers, who are sisters from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. About this song, they said “it is wrestling with a longing for everyone to take better care of each other, and to recognize that every person you share the planet with matters just as much as you do.”
Reggae/Ska
Buju Banton – Slogan
Buju Banton is a Jamaican dancehall, ragga, and reggae singer, from Kingston, Jamaica. Buju is a nickname given to him by his mother as a child. Banton is a Jamaican word that refers to someone who is a respected storyteller, which he adopted in tribute to deejay Burro Banton, who’s style of rough vocals and forceful delivery Buju emulates. Buju released this single about the media’s political spin on May 3rd.
YG Marley – Survival
YG Marley is the son of American rapper and singer Lauryn Hill and Jamaican football player Rohan Marley, and the grandson of reggae pioneer Bob Marley. This song about black resilience, which samples and references a handful of Bob Marley tracks, made its premiere on “The Tonight Show”, May 14th, in which Lauryn Hill performed alongside YG Marley.
Black Roots – Exploited
Black Roots are a roots reggae band from Bristol, England, formed in 1979. This track about the legacy of slavery and European colonialism is off their new album Roots, released in April.
Jazz/Spoken Word
The Brkn Record – Why do they fear us (featuring Yolanda Lear)
The Brkn Record is a project led and produced by Jake Ferguson, the co-founder and bass player for the UK’s deep jazz outfit the Heliocentrics, with fellow Heliocentrics co-founder and drummer Malcolm Catto. This song about blackphobia is off The Brkn Record’s new album, The Architecture of Oppression Part 2 released May 31st.
Hip Hop
Audio Assault – STRIKE!
Audio Assault is a political techno-industrial rap band originally from Dallas, Texas, one of the first acts to combine hip hop, industrial rhythms and rock guitars. This single released May 21st, features hip-hop legend Kool Keith, disco-industrial artist Xiu Xiu , punk-hiphop artist Ceschi (of Codafendents), Denver rapper and author Time (of Calm), and Bay Area artist Yunoka Berry (of Angelo Moore & The Brand New Step).
Dakota Bear x NugLife – Stolen Land
Dakota Bear is a Saskatoon-born, Vancouver-based Indigenous hip-hop artist and activist. NugLife is an LA based producer, beat-maker, and DJ. This song is off Nuglife’s album Nuglife 2024 released in April, and is about the colonization and genocide of the first nations peoples of Canada.
Dobby – Language is in the Land
Dobby is a Filipino-Aboriginal Australian musician. He describes himself as a “drapper”, a contraction of rapper and drummer, although he plays other instruments too, and is also a composer. This track is off Dobby’s new album WARRANGU: River Story, about the Barwon, the Bogan and the Culgoa Rivers in New South Wales, which he says is “about fighting for these rivers, and it’s about knowing how to be proud and how to take care of our land and waterways.”
Gabriel Teodros – Fire Season Part 2
Gabriel Teodros is a musician, DJ and writer from Seattle formerly of the groups Abyssinian Creole and Copperwire. Teodros’ music often features socially conscious themes, and he was a catalyst in the surge of dynamic underground rap acts from the Pacific Northwest during the first decade of the 2000s. This followup to his 2023 anti-war song Fire Season was released May 31st.
K!MMORTAL – Stop Business As Usual PART 2 feat. Phoenix Pagliacci & Bobby Sanchez
Kimmortal is a Queer Filipina emcee and singer-songwriter based in Vancouver, BC. Their debut album Sincerity = was entirely crowd funded by her community. In this follow up to Kimmortal’s November single against Israel’s war on Gaza, Stop Business As Usual, they feature Toronto R&B/Hip-Hop artist Phoenix Pagliacci of TRPP and transgender American-Peruvian rapper Bobby Sanchez.
Mach-Hommy – POLITickle
Mach-Hommy is a rapper and record producer from Newark, New Jersey of Haitian descent. He is well-known for his reclusive nature, concealing his real name and face in all public appearances. This behavior has led him to be described as “one of hip-hop’s most elusive artists” and gained him a cult following. POLITickle is about the International Monetary Fund in Haiti and is off his new album #Richaxxhaitian released May 17th.
Rapsody – He Shot Me
Rapsody began her career at North Carolina State University, where she joined hip hop collective H2O and its spinoff group Kooley High, despite not having rapped before. She launched her solo career in 2008. This song off her new album Please Don’t Cry is about the police murder of Breona Taylor, and samples Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”.
Rebelwise – Be Like Water (feat. Aya Iworiosa, Stic.Man, Ashel Seasunz & Quincy Davis)
Rebelwise are a conscious hip hop band from Portland, OR. They describe themselves as “Rebelwise delivers dope-medicine to uplift our people and our communities.” “REBEL speaks to the spiritual warriors standing with conviction. WISE speaks to engaging with a deeper awareness, in relationship with Creation.” This song off their new album Fully Loaded Altar, features Stic.Man, one half of the political hip-hop duo Dead Prez.
Talib Kweli & Madlib – Nat Turner (feat. Cassper Nyovest and Seun Kuti)
Talib Kweli earned recognition through his collaboration with fellow Brooklyn rapper Mos Def, when they formed the group Black Star in 1997. Madlib, is a DJ, music producer, and rapper, who has described himself as a “DJ first, producer second, and MC last.” Their new album Liberation 2 released in April is a sequel to their 2007 release Liberation. This track was inspired by abolitionist Nat Turner, an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people in 1831 in Virginia.
Macklemore – Hind’s Hall
The Seattle star rapper released this viral protest single on May 6th. The title references Columbia University Gaza encampment activists’ renaming of Hamilton Hall to “Hind’s Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces. Tom Morello said “Hind’s Hall” is the most Rage Against The Machine song since Rage Against The Machine.” Macklemore is donating all proceeds from the track to UNRWA.
Metal/Hardcore
Bear McCreary and Serj Tankian- Incinerator
Bear McCreary is an Emmy winning composer of film, television, and video game scores. This single featuring System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian on vocals is from Bear’s new double album The Singularity. About the song, Bear said “Once I heard Serj’s searing vocals, I knew immediately that Incinerator would be the first song on the album, acting like a warning that a massive, aggressive, and emotional journey lay ahead.”
CROSS DOG – Jane Roe
Cross Dog is a female fronted experimental, bass-driven hardcore punk band from Peterborough, Ontario. In this pro-choice single from their new album All Hard Feelings, the name ‘Jane Roe’ is used to “represent every single person who is forced to fight for their reproductive rights and access to abortions.”
Death Lens – Disturb The Peace
Death Lens originally formed in LA as an instrumental project, then evolved as they began using their platform to protest injustices facing their communities. This song, off their new album Cold World, is “a song written for the people, inspired by the people, and for my people – like my immigrant parents who came to the chaos of America to give us a better life and opportunity,” says vocalist Bryan Torres.
Tom Morello – Soldier In The Army Of Love
Tom Morello, is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, and political activist, best known for his tenure with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. This new solo single, off his upcoming solo rock album, Morello calls the song “a salute to the transformative power of music”. It features a guest guitar solo by his 13-year-old son, Roman Morello.
Punk
The Anti-Queens – Crusade
The Anti-Queens are a “punked up rock n’ roll quartet of super high-powered women who give the male-dominated music industry a run for their money” from Toronto. This single off their new album, Disenchanted, explores the systemic oppression faced by marginalized groups, particularly Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
The Irrepressibles – Yo Homo
The Irrepressibles is the creative guise of British musician Jamie McDermott. The project’s name is “about breaking boundaries in music and being honest about being gay in music”. Based in London, for many years, Jamie Irrepressible currently works from Manchester. Yo Homo! is a single about gay & queer rebellion released May 24th.
Lambrini Girls – Body of Mine
Lambrini Girls are a queer feminist three-piece punk band from Brighton, UK. About this single released April 23rd, The band says, “this song is about trying to connect to your gender identity, feeling like you’re not fully yourself, and struggling to figure out how to truly become it.”
Pink Suits – Dystopian Hellscape
Pink Suits are a queer, feminist punk duo out of Margate, U.K, formed in 2017. This is the title track off their sophomore album Dystopian Hellscape, which they describe as “an astute and comprehensive reaction to existing in the mess that is Tory Britain in 2024.” The track uses contemporary news stories to “create a tapestry of struggle that builds up in a horrifying picture of contemporary life.”
Ryan Cassata & The Top Surgeons – The Truth The Life The Way
Ryan Cassata is a transgender singer-songwriter, actor, speaker, and activist based in New York. This is the opening track off Ryan’s first punk album, with new band The Top Surgeons, called “This Machine Kills Transphobia”. They describe the album as “a collection of punk songs meant to challenge systems of oppression, especially sexism and transphobia.”
The Tony Slug Experience – Puppet Smut
This track, featuring Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys is off the self-titled album, The Tony Slug Experience, an homage to Amsterdam punk pioneer Tony Slug, of bands BGK, Loveslug, The Nitwitz, and The Hydromatics. An international group of over 30 musicians contributed to what became Tony’s final record; right after all recordings were on tape, Tony died at the age of 60 after a brief battle with throat cancer.
Lady Parts – Glass Ceiling Feeling
Lady Parts is a band created for the British sitcom, We Are Lady Parts, created, written, and directed by Nida Manzoor, who alongside her siblings, also writes and supervises the music for the show. The series follows a British punk rock band named Lady Parts, which consists entirely of Muslim women. This track is off the show’s soundtrack, We Are Lady Parts (Music From The Original Series – Seasons 1 & 2) released May 31st.
