The Flatliners

Being a band for 20 years doesn’t just change you—it reshapes how you see the world and your place in it. For Toronto punk veterans The Flatliners, their new album New Ruin became a chance to confront both the legacy they’ve inherited and the one they’ll leave behind. “This record is us sitting in an uncomfortable moment, with the world around us falling apart, and trying to learn from it,” says vocalist and guitarist Chris Cresswell. It’s an imperfect reckoning, but not without hope.

Musically, New Ruin is the band at their heaviest and most direct. Fueled by pointed lyrics and ferocious performances, the album lashes out at outdated institutions and ideologies with a sharpness that may surprise longtime fans. From its discordant opening to the thesis-like “Heirloom,” the record channels a new level of anger—focused, deliberate, and unflinching.

Yet amid the aggression, the band sounds more in control than ever. Self-produced and recorded in Toronto with longtime collaborators, the album blends post-hardcore intensity with the anthemic instincts of their punk roots. With mixing by Anton DeLost and mastering by Jason Livermore, New Ruin balances pop ambition and raw power, giving space to both melody and grit.

At its core, the album wrestles with generational frustration—“Heirloom,” as Cresswell puts it, is “hate mail to the previous generation”—while still searching for light in the wreckage. Closer “Under A Dying Sun” offers a sense of hard-earned solace. Despite its darkness, New Ruin also captures the band rediscovering joy after time apart, embracing the belief that while it may be “almost too late,” art and honesty can still push things in the right direction.