Euro-punk Illuminated – THE MANIFEST

In the world cup of rock n roll, England and America are the typical leaders. In distance second we have Australia, Sweden, Canada, and Ireland. The English speaking countries seem to have the advantage, which makes sense since rock originates from the English speaking world and culturally moves outward. I don’t know why Sweden excels so well, probably has something to do with the socialist utopia they live in.

I was cycling through my mp3 collection deleting all the metal music I was trying to “understand” a few months earlier, when I noticed quite a few continental European bands who I enjoyed. Most of these bands don’t get enough attention.

Combat 77 – Germany

Cool Oi! from Hanover. Features memorable leads on almost every song. They have a female vocalist which is unusual for the genre, giving the band a unique sound.

No Hope For Kids – Denmark

Catchy pop punk with dignity!

Kidnappers – Germany

Awesome garage rock with great gang vocals. Their album ‘Will Protect You’ is pure fun start to finish.

Terrible Feelings – Sweden

After dropping a few highly acclaimed singles in the underground punk scene, Terrible Feelings released their first album ‘Shadows’. They have a rockabilly pop musical style, with female vocals.

Turbonegro – Norway

Obvious choice, almost didn’t throw them in the list because it’s so obvious. They have gone through many transformations in their endless stream of albums. Their ‘Ass Cobra’ album has a more straight ahead punk rock sound, while their later albums (most notably ‘Apocalypse Dudes’) goes off fearlessly in every direction.

Toyotas – Spain

The Toyotas are another garage rock like band. They have quite a few seriously underrated classic hits distributed on various 7 inches singles. I feel like a singles compilation is in order. Either way this is a band you should know.

Please share with us and the rest of the world the other awesome European bands we missed in the comments below (not including England, because that would be too easy).