Amyl and the Sniffers are really good.
Same place it's been for the past 40 years, Japan.
Literally never went mainstream.
Maybe not the most recent, but have you checked out Defiance, OH? The band, not an actual town in Ohio.
A band that is slept on hard and legit my favorite active punk band is Get Dead. Their album Dancing With The Curse is unreal cover to cover. Only 32 minutes long, but it's a god damn classic. My favorites on it are Hard Times, Stickup, and Confrontation.
Fat Mike first turned em down, then they dosed his drink with Lucy at the after party, and he signed em in the morning! The signer was a hiphop lyricist originally, which you can hear in how it rides the beat at times, but he was meant for punk rock!
Hadn't heard these guys. This is some good shit, thanks!
The way the singer does his lyrics kind of gives me The Hold Steady vibes.
FIDLAR and the Mean Jeans both put out new albums in the last year.
FIDLAR is kind of a mix between punk and california surf rock, and the Mean Jeans are very Ramones-ey.
They're both solidly west coast, though. No idea on midwest punk.
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Oh there's also Sweeping Promises, they're kind of a lofi post-punk, but they dropped an album in 2023.
They're from Boston, so also not midwest.
The Corps has a new album, Fractured Protocol. Very much worth a listen.
