From old-school hardcore to shimmering shoegaze: Scowl’s Kat Moss on the bands to check out right now

Kat Moss has got their ear to the ground. In the much-celebrated California hardcore scene that bore them and their bandmates in Scowl, they’re bound to know a few people. Hardcore prizes community, after all. They’re exposed to a huge variety of fresh new noise within the hardcore bubble – but they’ve got plenty of knowhow about the world outside it too.

As the Santa Cruz upstarts prepare to release their second album Are We All Angels in just a few weeks, we caught up with the singer and asked them for a few recommendations. Should these artists blow up in future, you’ll have heard it here first…

“I am obsessed with them. There’s two people, and it uses drum machines and break beats and this visceral, tense vocal from this incredible woman. Her name is Amy, and [she can sound so] angry and mean but she also has this very beautiful, push-pull going on. We had the pleasure of having Kumo 99 play our hometown holiday show in Santa Cruz two years ago. I was so excited that they agreed to play because I just wanted to get drunk and dance, and Kumo 99 is perfect get-drunk-and-dance music. They’re fucking badass, and their music is so good. They're rising very fast and it makes me so happy to see.”

“They’re combining shoegaze with beats. It’s a very popular thing right now, I will say it's a trend, and it's a great trend. I think they're amazing and underrated as fuck. They're from Philly, I believe, and their first demo came out in 2020, but, I mean, this band is just so good. I've been pushing the rest of Scowl to listen to them. I’m always like, ‘I want to play with them so bad,’ just for personal reasons – I want to see them!”

“They bring in all these influences that aren't traditionally popular in hardcore right now at all, like Oi, which I fuck with heavily. It’s a very ’80s hardcore style and they fucking rip. It’s my favourite kind of hardcore, just meat-and-potatoes hardcore punk. I've known these guys for a long time. The singer is my friend Tommy, who is one of the first people I met at a DIY hardcore show, and I've seen him in so many bands. They’re such good musicians and I love seeing them win.”

“He’s signed to Epitaph and put out this EP Big Cigars and Satin Shorts, and I couldn’t stop playing it. It’s got these really cool moments of pop-punk and alternative rock. His visuals are so cool. It’s hard to describe exactly what the musical style is, because it’s kind of like indie rock, but it's also got a lot of pop-punk elements, but all of the elements that I like. It’s an amazing EP, though. I got really addicted to these songs and the lyricism.”

“They played our benefit show in Birmingham last year. I knew about them but seeing them live was crazy. They're so fucking good – their album Suicide In The City is perfect. They’re probably one of my favourite live hardcore bands that I've seen in a long time – I knew that they were going to be good, but then I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ They always seem to pull a really decent crowd as well.”

Scowl's album Are We All Angels is released on April 4. They play Slam Dunk on May 25 and 26 – get your tickets now.

Read this:

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• Scowl: “People assume that if you’re getting onstage, you’re a really confident, cocky person. That’s not always the case”
• Scowl: “This feels awfully vulnerable, but it’s a vulnerability that I’m ready to embrace”