From Canada, in fact from my city, The Dreadnoughts! Their first three albums are punk gold. (Later stuff, they started having fun and doing polka etc. But whenever I see them in concert, they mostly rock from the first 3.)

If you’re only going to listen to one, Polka’s Not Dead would be my recommendation.

(Full credit to the Real McKenzies for paving the way, Chip would be their most famous song.)

Swedish punk:

• Björnarna
• De Lyckliga Kompisarna
• Mimikry
• Västerbron
• Asta Kask
• Ebba Grön
• Charta 77
• Lastkaj 14

Forgetting a bunch because it’s 05:00 here and I’m tired, but these are the ones that first come to mind.

Alien weaponry is a metal band from New Zealand that has a lot of songs at least partially in Maori

Check out the netlabel plainly named ‘Russian Post-punk’ for some of that genre from various post-Soviet countries.

Some more from Eastern Europe:

Russia:

• NOM, e.g. ‘Entertainers choir of the conductors reserve’

• Nol — 80s-90s bayan folk-punk. Later Fyodor Chistyakov recorded some interpretations of classical music on bayan, and currently lives in the US and has released English versions of his old songs (but they suck, because he’s old now and because the songs don’t translate well).

• Mango-Mango — comedy-rock with splendid ska-ish instrumentation

• Nogu Svelo — 90s absurdist rock

• Boney Nem: e.g. ‘Heavy Nagila’ and ‘Chito-grito-margalito’ — mostly parodying cheesy Russian pop music in thrash and death metal. The 2003 album ‘День Победы’ (‘Day of Victory’) is full of bangers.

• Lemonday — acoustic-ish low-fi somewhat absurdist anti-folk. Their best stuff is these old videos on YouTube.

• Inturist — jazz/post-punk fusion

• toska po domu — electronic post-punk (Russian, based in Tel-Aviv)

• My friend tape recorder — very danceable post-punk, oddly lyrical

• margenrot — post-punk/post-industrial with some Arabic motifs

• Beskultura - noise-rock

• Megapolis — retro rock

• Egor Letov / Grazhdanskaya Oborona — 90s psychedelic punk

• Straw Raccoons — 90s absurdist noise-rock/punk

• Anatoly Nikulin’s ‘Russian Music’ is a bunch of prog-rock/electronic covers of early-20th-century classical music that was influenced by the folk tradition back then

5’nizza — 90s Ukrainian reggae-rock

Воплі Відоплясова — Ukrainian folk-rock

The Hypnotunez — Ukrainian, playing some kinda Balkan-swing

Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra — a rather obvious recommendation for Serbian/Balkan folk-rock

Zdob și Zdub — Moldovan, playing Balkan folk-rock

Đorđe Marjanović was a popular Serbian/Yugoslav singer of the 1960s with rock’n’roll songs among other stuff

Demolition Group — Slovenian post-punkish rock, known for inclusion on the ‘Trans Slovenia Express’ tribute compilation by Laibach

the VAPE (Petr Válek) — hilarious Czech noise

A Hawk & A Hacksaw — mixing Balkan, Jewish and Turkish music

Elsewhere:

Die Toten Hosen — German bar-punk

Sexy Sushi — French electroclash / synth-punk (picks up with the forth track in particular)

Hedningarna and Värttinä — Nordic folk-rock

Garmarna — Swedish folk-rock

Ulver’s ‘Kveldssanger’ is an acoustic album of sorta Norwegian folk-rock, made between two raw-black-metal albums

Tappi Tíkarrass and Kukl — Icelandic, punk/post-punk bands in which Björk was before The Sugarcubes

‘Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese Classic Tracks 1968–1974’ and ‘Cambodian Rocks’ — brilliant compilations of garage-ish rock of Vietnam and Cambodia from back in the day

Pungo — Japanese jazzy post-punk/folk (see ‘Waltz’ in particular)

Garage Chanson Show — Japanese dark-cabaret

Melt-Banana — Japanese noise-rock

Ruins — Japanese prog/noise-rock

Faye Wong — Hong-Kong pop, check out the cover of ‘Dreams’ from the film ‘Chungking Express’

Mammals — Chinese noise/math-rock

Mimilocos — most probably Argentinian, coldwave

Molotov — Mexican rap/alt-rock

From Germany Die Ärzte are great and their hit from the 80s or 90s Schrei nach Liebe is pretty much on topic.

Die Toten Hosen are their long time “rival”. Die Ärzte got a pretty good start when they were the first act at a Tote Hosen concert.

From the Netherlands: HANGYOUTH . One of their big hits is translated as “You don’t hate mondays, you hate capitalism”.

Dane here.

Skalar is a great Ska Punk band, but they’re so punk that most of their stuff has never been released as albums. They just play live. You can find a lot of concert recordings on youtube though.

Rock is a broad genre, and “best” is highly subjective. Personally, I’d highlight things like Dizzy Mizz Lizzy who had an interesting sound going back in the day.

Disneyland After Dark is always a classic. The Savage Affair if you’re looking for something more ballad-y perhaps.

Stoner rock with blues notes? Baby Woodrose might tickle your fancy.

If you’re looking for something more psycadelic, The Savage Rose could be an option.

Operation Ivy

Dead Milkmen

Rancid

(US)

German here. I once made a playlist of my favorite german punk songs, 'cuz it’s my main genre. The playlist isn’t up to date anymore because I quit using Spotify, but maybe you can find some cool songs from there!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jwsKqzd6Dt4brzfzIinel

For German you may also want to check out !linkemusik@feddit.org

Kind of fitting the punk attitude and rock-ish in sound is a Finnish band called Ursus Factory. I love them, seen them live a few times, such energy. And it’s just two blokes, nothing more. It’s so surprising they make it work live too, since in studio releases they tend to have some backing tracks, but it just somehow works.

Bio in eng: https://ursusfactory.net/ENG-Bio

Not sure if it’s as good if you can’t pick up the lyrics, but here’s a few of my favorites:

• Sadetakin pintaan: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=Jrvlp6oSsvE
• Mitä luolassa on: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=3vAxM_1XHW8
• Oletko siellä: https://lordag.ffm.to/oletkosiella
• Tuun tuun tuun: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=E0B0mzOxcc4
• Mitä mies mitä äijä: https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=EcbO3SBrxbY

Seriously suggest checking out!

Edit: For tidal users, I made this playlist to quickly check those five out: https://tidal.com/playlist/545e800a-1f64-4a2d-a536-1de2267ec40f

Russian/CIS rock:

• Melnitsa

tl. Windmill. Folk rock with a very unique and not direct lyrics

• Louna

1 word: protest

• Splean

Very lyrical, often describing slice of life situations

• Korol i shut

tl. King and Jester. Punk folk rock.

• DDT

Feels like late-soviet bard rock

Female fronted Doom from Japan:

https://magdaleneju-nen.bandcamp.com/album/jingai-kitan

Female fronted stoner from Italy:

https://frayle.bandcamp.com/album/the-white-witch-ep

First nation’s Yolnu Surf-Rock from Australia (English and Yolnu matha):

https://kingstingray.bandcamp.com/album/king-stingray

Argentinian punk:

https://loscripis.bandcamp.com/album/goldfish-ep

Ku de Judas, from Portugal. They were a cult band in the 1980’s. Most members have already died.

Mata-Ratos is another. They still exist today.

punk scene in Ireland started up the north late 70s with bands like the Undertones, and Stuff Little Fingers In the 90s you’d have Ash (alt rock) and Therapy? (punk/metal crossover) The only current punkish one I can think now are Fontaines DC and Murder Capital