’68 never needed much—a guitar, a drum kit, two people who seemingly never stop having fun making music. For 13 years, ’68 made noise rock that was, essentially, about how life-affirming it is to make songs. Now, with They Are Survived, their fifth and final album, released while they were already out on the road playing it for the last time. They are saying goodbye at full volume.
The band was formed in 2013 by guitarist and vocalist Josh Scogin, formerly of the hardcore punk band the Chariot, and drummer Michael McClellan. The Chariot played their final show in November 2013, and just over a week later, Scogin teased an announcement with a countdown timer on the website theyare68.com. When the timer ended in December 2013, he revealed the new group and posted a two-song EP, Midnight, for sale online. It sold out quickly, but while Scogin might have been savvy about generating interest in his new band, the following records didn’t look outward for success.
Scogin named the band after his late father’s ’68 Camaro, and they are proudly rooted in their Atlanta environment. The name carries the weight of something inherited, something beloved, something that eventually has to be let go. The debut full-length album, In Humor and Sadness, was released in 2014. Then came Two Parts Viper in 2017 (a fabulous album), followed by the 2020 EP Love Is Ain’t Dead and the 2021 full-length Give One Take One. In October 2017, the original drummer, Michael McClellan, departed for personal reasons and was swiftly replaced by Nikko Yamada. Far from derailing the band, Yamada’s arrival injected renewed technical precision into the rhythm section, which, if anything, made the music hit harder.
Then came Yes, and… in 2023, everything clicked into place. Grammy-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz—who has worked with Foo Fighters, Rush, and Code Orange—became a believer after just a few songs of a ’68 set and captured their high-intensity bombast. Scogin and Yamada displayed their strongest songwriting and leaned into hooks without losing any of their raw approach. They were loud but with a blues undercurrent that always gave listeners a way into the songs. Yes, and… was the sound of a group that had fully figured out what they were, and that knowledge, ironically, seems to have brought them to the decision to stop.
It was on this tour that I saw them in a bar in Tampa, Florida. The two walked onto the stage in their white shirts and black ties, facing each other, with audiences only getting a side view. Watching them felt like a private jam session made public, two people playing music first and foremost for the joy of playing it together. The suits gave it the spectacle of ceremony. The facing inward gave it the intimacy of something almost secret. In one of the few comments he made to the audience, Scogin said that music is a great outlet for rage. Then he smiled slyly and said, “But I’m here just making music with my best friend.”
They Are Survived arrives as the final testament of that conversation. It opens with “RAIN EVERYONE”, which establishes immediately that this is not a nostalgic retreat. The first tracks continue with the band’s characteristic dirty Southern rock sensibilities, and “RAIN EVERYONE” is a reminder that Scogin’s guitar, overdriven, percussive, dragging blues through a hardcore blender, makes the listener pay attention. The song is about presence, about being here and making noise that fills a room, and it functions as a declaration: we are not going quietly. Scogin’s guitar tone shifts as he loops through riffs, the repetition not monotony but ritual, the way you might circle something before letting it go.
“ALWAYS LOVE” arrived as the first single and is one of the most striking songs ’68 have released. Scogin’s voice is rough and strained, but the song, like many songs in ’68’s oeuvre, can be interpreted as simply being happy to make songs and have people listen. “WILL YOU THERE” continues the album’s emotional through-line, with a title that hints at the kind of grammatically suspended question the band has always favored.
Scogin has had a penchant for telling a story with the track listing itself via past releases, and across They Are Survived, the song titles feel like fragments of a larger sentence being assembled, parsed, and finally completed. “FALL. WILL.” “The DIE. IS.” “WILL CELEBRATE IN.” The songs’ lyrics are also snippets. They do not tell a story so much as circle the beat itself, wonderfully and strangely driven by Yamada. Lyrics come and go, but the music keeps pushing songs forward.
There are extended instrumental segments on this record, perhaps more than on previous ’68 albums, and they are where the facing-each-other philosophy becomes most audible. Scogin and Yamada are listening to one another, responding in real time, building something in the space between guitar and drums that sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, but is always interesting.
The record ends with a closing track, “SHINE. NOW.” that arrives at just over four minutes and carries all the energy you’d expect, while functioning exactly as a final, going-away song should: not mournful, not triumphant, but both at once. As Scogin sings: “And this is it, a celebrate away / To the songs that have seen it all / And here’s to the great unknown / To the voices that sing along. It’s really a wonderful ending song from a fantastic band that slips somewhat into sentimentality, yet is just weird enough to still cut.
When I saw ’68 play in 2023, during their last song, they broke down their instruments, with Scogin taking apart the drum set as Yamada tried to get a last bang in before they left. They did not say goodbye. I will miss this band and regret only seeing them live once—I was certainly one of the voices that sang along.