Fire in the Radio

Taking their name from Charles Bukowski's poem "Regard Me," the Philadelphia outfit Fire in the Radio fuses melodic punk with needle-in-the-red indie pop into a sound that is at once moody, muscular, and packed with earworms. The group surfaced in 2014, built from veteran Philly musicians Adam Caldwell on drums, Richard Carbone handling guitar and vocals, Jonathan Miller also on guitar and vocals, and Ed Olsen on bass. Their first full-length, Telemetry, arrived in 2015 and earned praise on both sides of the Atlantic for its infectious mix of pop-punk and emo-tinged indie rock. The 2017 release New Air proved more dynamic still, earning further praise as the band refined its approach and evoked early indie-punk forerunners such as Jawbreaker, Hüsker Dü, and Superchunk. With 2020's Monuments the quartet pushed into noticeably darker territory, folding in grunge, shoegaze, and brooding strains of post-punk and new wave.