Cindy Lawson returns with her scorching punk-rock revival 'The Reckoning'

There are comebacks, and then there are resurrections. With 'The Reckoning', Cindy Lawson charges back with the force of someone who’s spent decades gathering thunder in her chest. What emerges is a blistering rallying cry from a Minneapolis icon who refuses to stay quiet any longer.

In the ‘80s, Lawson was a fixture of the Twin Cities’ most feral rock rooms, a peer among scene-shapers and outsiders who rewrote what American punk could look like. Then came the betrayal that cracked her connection to music entirely. Many artists never make it back from that kind of wound. But Lawson not only returns, she returns swinging.

'The Reckoning' is a three-minute gut-punch, all teeth and attitude, built on jagged riffs and a rhythm section that stomps like it’s kicking down the door. Lawson’s voice cuts through the mix with a howl that feels both newly freed and deeply familiar. There’s a delicious venom to her delivery, a sense that every syllable has been simmering for years, waiting for the moment she could finally spit them out.

The song’s message is unflinching: this is what it sounds like when the tables turn. When those who’ve caused harm can’t outrun consequences. When the person they dismissed rises with a louder voice than they ever expected. Here, she channels decades of swallowed rage into a battle-cry fit for fans of the great truth-tellers, those punk poets who never let injustice walk quietly by.

The video, directed by Chelsea Oxborough, amplifies the ferocity. It’s raw, visceral, and pulsing with a sense of reclamation, like watching someone gather back every stolen piece of themselves.

What’s most electrifying, though, is the emotional voltage beneath the fire. It’s Lawson reconnecting with the spark they tried to snuff out. It’s a veteran of the scene stepping back into her power as if she never left, except now she carries a deeper truth, a matured fury, and a sharpened sense of purpose.

If this is her return, then the message is clear: Cindy Lawson is unstoppable. And this time, she’s writing her own ending; louder, harder, and more unapologetically alive than ever.