When Alex Leniz moved from Tampa Bay to Philadelphia, he wasn’t chasing a scene. He was starting over. Common Crime came out of that reset, a band built around punk roots, melodic instincts, and a need to make songs that feel like they mean something. Since releasing their debut EP Signals & Signs in 2024, they’ve become one of the most promising names in Philly’s underground, doing it without hype or gimmicks. Just songs, sweat, and a clear sense of who they are.

Nobody talks about Blonder Tongue Audio Baton like it mattered. Not really. Not in the way it actually mattered. Not like it was a detonated cassette left smoldering in a Honda Civic cupholder, slow-burning through somebody’s first love, somebody’s second breakdown, and a hundred flannel-shrouded basement shows where everyone swore they’d never sell out and half of them already had. Swirlies were the kind of band that soundtracked the part of your life you can’t even take pictures of—the parts that just come back to you in flashes, stained with mildew and feedback.

Some bands don’t die. They fray at the ends, get tangled in your guts, haunt your stereo like a power line fallen in a storm. Still crackling, still hot. Burning Airlines never fit the frame. Too jagged for the narratives, too clean-cut to be lumped in with the noise freaks, too crooked to go pop. They were always in-between. Always mid-collapse. And somehow, that made them eternal.