It’s cliche, albeit inaccurate, to say “punk music is dead.” In the past, to counter this false narrative, I’d point to bands like Rancid or musicians like Laura Jane Grace from Against Me. But then I’d just be proving their point. Rancid’s seminal “And Out Come the Wolves” album exploded onto the scene in 1995, and Laura Jane of Against Me has been Laura Jane for almost a decade, while Against Me has been around since the late 1990s.
Or perhaps I’d point to places like Latin America, where punk is still revered and, in some cases, passed down from generation to generation, where Gramps is a punk and so are all his kids and grandkids.
But now I can point to the rise of female-fronted punk bands like The Linda Lindas and Destroy Boys, as well as the most significant emergence of all: Amyl and the Sniffers from Australia.
Amyl and the Sniffers, from Melbourne, Australia, have been around for less than a decade and blasted onto the music scene in 2019, just before the pandemic put everyone in lockdown.
I personally just discovered them about ten months ago in a bar in Kyiv, Ukraine, just before the mandatory curfew. I was chatting with some new friends; a couple of fellow journalists from France, and several local Ukrainian youth.
Then one of Amyl and the Sniffers’ videos appeared on the video jukebox TV and sound system. Everything went into slow motion, the conversation blurred into the background and I stared as in a trance at what I was witnessing on a video screen.
Travel always deepens my perceptions, and Ukraine during a war, near curfew, certainly does. But I can’t recall stopping a conversation in mid-sentence (rather rudely in retrospect) to watch a music video since ages ago.
FLASHBACK to early 1990s, Nashville, TN – I was on the phone with a friend when the Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video came on and interrupted me mid-sentence. “I’ll call you back,” I suddenly told my friend.
Back then, far away in Tennessee, a chill went up my spine, telling me that the music world and mine had just changed when I saw that video for the first time.
To use my travels as a simile, it was like experiencing something magical for the first time… the mountains of Patagonia, the fjords of Norway… or less magical and more jarring… hearing an air raid siren in Ukraine… and realizing… this is it, I’m here, and history is happening.
That night, ten months ago in Kyiv, I saw and heard something from vocalist Amy Taylor and her bandmates that stopped me in my tracks, just as it had when I first saw Nirvana on the tele so many years ago. A chill went up my spine.
This time, I could “shazam” the song on my phone and download the tunes rather than trek to the CD store, and I did and thus my journey with what I consider punk’s latest proof of life began.
I saw them live at Pier 17 in New York City on May 16, 2025, not even a year after my chilling discovery.
It was not an easy (or cheap) ticket to get. It was sold out, there were people at the entrance looking to buy, and it was the most I can recall ever paying for a concert ticket, much less a punk concert. And it was WORTH it.
Unofficially pegged on Wikipedia as “pub rock,” I beg to differ and say this band is as punk as it gets. And the crowd agreed.
With the first song, I was pushed aside by a guy with a mohawk and his girlfriend in her Rancid T-shirt and Doc Martens, who rushed to get the mosh circle going.
From the first beat of drummer Bryce Wilson’s hit on the skins to the three-song encore, the crowd alternated all night between moshing in a circle and festival-style crowd surfing, just like any good punk show. The music was loud, extremely loud, and my ears rang afterward as I cursed my lack of foresight to bring earplugs…yet again.
This eventually took me to the outer fringes of the crowd later in the show, where enthusiasm was still very visible as folks danced with themselves or with others, as if no one was watching. They sang along to songs that I hadn’t yet heard.
What they did NOT do was peel off into side conversations or stand around at the beer tent looking bored. This wasn’t one of those concerts where one inevitably sees casual non-fans infiltrate a venue. If they did, they were soon mesmerized by what they witnessed.
But the most significant difference between an Amyl and the Sniffers show and a typical punk rock show is not only the size but also the makeup of the crowd.
This was at least a 50/50 split in the female-to-male ratio (rather than the typical 70/30 male to female punk rock ratio).
It was diverse, as most NYC concerts are, but it was as raucous and rowdy as any punk show I’ve attended in the past ten years. It reminded me of attending a big punk show in the previously mentioned Latin America.
Much of it is due to its petite, charming, yet aggressive lead singer, Amy Taylor (aka Amyl, which appears on her driver’s license and is also short for Amyl Nitrate, or “Amyl” which is Australian slang for “poppers” – hence the name “Sniffers”).
I don’t know Amyl’s vitals, but if she’s 5 feet tall, her talent is ten feet tall, her enthusiasm and energy are fifteen feet tall, and her attitude is twenty feet tall.
Yes, she dresses sexy, but she dances too, like no one is watching.
At one point she channelled Tina Turner, looking like a mad rooster stalking the farmyard in search of a fight… something Tina probably knew about growing up in tiny Nutbush, Tennessee, and perhaps Amy knew as well growing up in Australia.
But please don’t get twisted like one of Amy’s rooster struts. Amy is no empty vessel or silly sex symbol, folks; this is a lady who will mess you up if you cross her or are a bully preying on the vulnerable. That’s the vibe, and she’s got the vocal pipes to tell you about it before she does anything about it.
Yes, like any good punk musician, she’s an activist and spoke out at different times in the evening to call Trump “a skidmark” (usually not worth remarking but considering she’s here from another country on what I assume is an artist visa, takes on new meaning of risk-especially in light of Trump’s recent attacks against Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen).
She railed against femicide, for trans rights, and the rights of all people to not get harassed sexually or otherwise at a concert. She has been outspoken about women’s rights, aboriginal rights, and stopping Netanyahu’s war crimes in Palestine, like….any… true…punk…worthy…of…their… new…massive….platform… would. Bravo!
She hates bullies! Bully for her!
The crowd hung on Amyl’s every word and action, and why not? She is as charismatic as they come, but her bandmates are no shrinking violets.
Bassist Gus Romer, who was dressed like a soccer hooligan in a tracksuit, is truly funny, fearless, and unmistakably an oi punk. He led cheers of “oi oi oi” and provided backing vocals with his growly voice all night long.
Guitarist Declan Merhtans is exceptionally talented. He plays his instrument as if it were a toy and rips through guitar solos like it’s the hair metal heydays of the 1980s.
Drummer Bryce Wilson keeps the pace hectic with songs that switch from an aggressive metal, almost retro rock sound to fast-paced, pounding punk rock. I get the feeling Bryce does not need a gym membership; he works it out nightly on stage.
When someone as powerful as Amyl organically collaborates with talented musicians (her bandmates were her roommates in a shared flat in Melbourne BEFORE they became a band) and creates songs that are both compelling and straightforward, I’m only slightly surprised by the success the band has achieved.
Yet, I’m still surprised.
This is primarily due to rock music’s perceived lack of popularity. I’ve witnessed many talented musicians miss their opportunity simply because the genre they mastered is out of favor at the exact moment they are peaking or when they are just breaking onto the scene.
Something in the zeitgeist has changed. Perhaps it’s the rise of fascism around the world that is placing raw, rebellious rock back in its rightful cultural position?
Or maybe it’s simply cyclical, and it’s time to return to straightforward rock music without any bells and whistles.
Whatever it is, punk rock is back, if it ever went anywhere and we need it now more than ever.
I can think of no better global ambassadors for punk rock’s resurgence than Amyl and the Sniffers, and I hope they can handle the sudden success coming their way (and indeed, already here).
I’ve never seen a post-concert mob descend on a band’s merch after a show in such a wild and frenzied display of enthusiasm to purchase a piece of the evening for posterity as I witnessed after this show. Someone was yelling “you can buy it online, you know.”
And for the record, I’ve seen A LOT of concerts over the years. This was a first.
Success like this will be challenging, but Amy is not Courtney Love, and this isn’t the mid-90s, which makes this whole thing even more remarkable that it occurred at all in such a niche targeted, fragmented entertainment ecosystem.
The world has changed, but Amyl and the Sniffers joyfully make up a part of the better part of this otherwise dystopian alteration.
Thankfully, that chill that I get when witnessing something new…. my spidey sense… still works after all these years. As does my nose, and I smell something great cooking up in punk music.
Get a whiff of Amyl and the Sniffers and a talented opening act from Philly, another female-fronted rock group, “Sheer Mag”, at the videos posted here.