The Punk Site 2023 Top 40: #1 Grade 2 – Grade 2

With the year about to come to an end in just a few short hours, and many of us working hard on starting the New Year with a hangover, it’s time to present The Punk Site‘s favourite album from 2023, and this year it’s the Isle of Wight’s Grade 2 with their self titled album that was released back in February through Hellcat Records. The eponymous album is their most representative work yet, Grade 2 is a thumping fifteen track tour-de-force melding the uncompromising ethos of punk with the howl of contemporary injustice, personal identity, and frustrations of Gen-Z youth, authentically told by three lads with punk coursing through their veins.

“There have been so many bands in my lifetime that give you a reason to, shout and fight against a systemically wrong world like The Jam, The Clash, Crass or give you a feeling of belonging like Angelic Upstarts, Buzzccks or Rancid, so to find a band who do all of these things and more, is a pure joy. This latest album just sores and screams way above the mad crowd of albums that exist or have existed, it could or should be a classic for years to come. Anthems check, belonging check, rebellious check, love for life check, fucking outright roooooaaaar big check!!” (Mark Cartwright)

Grade 2 meld the near-mythical musical heritage of their native Isle of Wight with the humdrum reality of growing up in a tired seaside town, they spit out blistering punk music laced with passion, angst, humor and despair, and they deliver in person too. Grade 2 have toured relentlessly throughout this year in support of their eponymous full length with The Punk Site catching them live in Anaheim, CA and Newcastle, UK this year, with the same 5 star outcome across 5000 miles. So let’s raise a glass to the end of 2023, a tumultuous year by anyone’s standards, but musically one that has been memorable for all the right reasons, see you back here in 2024.