Music

Nu-hardcore quintet, Bodyweb, are the sound of someone’s nervous system on the verge of breakdown—hyperactive, tormented and unflinchingly vulnerable. Born out of the Leeds hardcore scene, they’re a shape-shifting alloy of jagged emotion and precision chaos. 

What began as late-night jams between Louis Hardy (Higher Power, Big Cheese, Fate) and Ben Jones (Pest Control) eventually mutated into train_wreck_simulation, a debut EP filled with frantic breakdowns and nu-metal swag that felt like the soundtrack to a digital exorcism. The final piece of the puzzle came from Hardy’s estranged childhood friend, pq. His twisted samples and synthetic textures are haunted and disturbed, injecting cyberpunk soul into hardcore flesh. Contorting through several iterations in the following years, the band absorbed Luke Thompson (Stiff Meds) on drums, filmmaker Tom Hobson on guitar and Naomi Macleod (Empire State Bastard) on bass, and laid down their first collective offering.

deadwired is due out on Flatspot Records later this year. Bodyweb's second EP is a violent thesis on connection and pain that sends Hardy’s unfiltered vocals through heaven and hell. Four overstimulating tracks run a gamut of styles and influences from Slipknot to Björk, constantly lane-switching between dizzying heaviness, ambient soundscapes and brain-burrowing hooks. Entirely self-produced, deadwired upgrades the sonic formula laid down on the last record and raises the question: what else could exist in Bodyweb’s twisted roadmap? Nothing seems impossible. What seems important, however, is retaining the rawness in a style that can often turn sterile.

“We still wanted it to sound very human. It had to be well produced but not cold and lifeless.” shares Hardy. “We didn’t use a click track. All guitars were real amps with microphones. We tried to make everything as real and raw as possible, we recorded using all the same gear we use when playing live too to really capture the energy of how it feels when we jam together."

On stage, Bodyweb don’t just perform, they purge. Raucous live electronics meld with digitally contorted guitars. Breakbeats meet breakdowns—no backing track in sight. Bodyweb enable a collective catharsis. Mosh, dance, dive, scream, heal. A physical therapy session screamed into the void.

Green Bioluminescence vinyl (/200) - (Evil Greed / Devil Dog / Imprint Merch Exclusive)

Track Listing:

1. no faith 
2. shadow boxing 
3. Sugarcoated 
4. deadwire 

This is a pre-order item with a release date of October 3. Anything else purchased in the same order will not be shipping until these are in stock.

There’s a kind of quiet violence in how music is consumed today—flattened into background noise, sonic perfume fed into algorithms, sold as lifestyle. It’s entertainment as anesthesia. Sound without the weight. The Spiritual Sound, the new full-length from Los Angeles–based band Agriculture, stands as a pointed refusal of this condition. This is not a playlist. This is not a vibe. It is a demand.

Across its runtime, The Spiritual Sound traces a narrative arc through extremes: searing, sky-cracking catharsis on side A; a slow-burning, devotional undercurrent on side B. The album is largely a fusing of the visions of its two principal songwriters, Dan Meyer and Leah Levinson: distinct voices, deeply complementary.

Dan writes like someone clawing toward the divine through noise, channeling Zen Buddhism, historical collapse, ecstatic grief. Leah’s songs move differently: grounded in queer history and AIDS-era literature, amid the suffocating fog of the present, they carry the weight of survival as daily ritual. Her writing asks how to honor queer community and collective struggle without turning it into identity branding or personal mythmaking: how to stay honest, how to stay present. Though distinct, their voices converge in a singular spiritual grammar—one that defines the totality of The Spiritual Sound, not as separate parts, but as one unified expression.

Agriculture’s formation mirrors this duality. What began as a loose collaboration between Kern Haug and Dan Meyer in the Los Angeles noise scene evolved into a shared pursuit of the sublime through heavy music. With the additions of Richard Chowenhill and Leah Levinson, the project solidified into the band’s current form. The ecstatic black metal foundation was laid on 2022’s The Circle Chant, expanded into something more precise and far-reaching on their 2023 self-titled full-length, and deepened further with 2024’s Living Is Easy: a record that embraced devotional intensity and radiant heaviness in equal measure.

Agriculture’s writing process is built on dismantling and revision of self. Dan and Leah bring songs to the band and then allow them to be pulled apart and rebuilt communally: reshaped through conflict, repetition, and deep trust. Richard adds guitar melodies and solos, and Kern constructs rhythms which are sometimes familiar but often unconventional. Finally, with Richard producing, the final form of each song is realized through intense collaborative work in the studio. Although a time consuming and ego-frustrating process, this allows the band to find the spirit of the songs not through inspiration, but through persistence.

Yet, even in its most ambitious moments, The Spiritual Sound remains rooted in the ordinary and in the day-to-day relationships between the people who made it. Gas station snacks. Inside jokes. Sleeping on floors. Playing shows in rooms that smell like mildew. The spirit here isn’t abstract, it's live. This is spiritual music that starts with imperfect gear and a long-in-the-tooth tour van.

Agriculture doesn’t offer salvation. The Spiritual Sound isn’t a map out of the fire. What it offers instead is presence: a confrontation with the moment, however unbearable, however divine. It insists that meaning is still possible, even in a world hell-bent on reducing everything to content, and where suffering itself can be conducive to recovery. As the Buddhist saying goes “the only way out is in.”

When the founder of Chinese Zen, Bodhidharma, was asked by the emperor of China “What is the true meaning of the holy truth?” He replied, “Vast emptiness. Nothing holy.” This is not background music. This is not for vibe.

Track Listing:

1. My Garden
2. Flea
3. Micah (5:15am)
4. The Weight
5. Serenity
6. The Spiritual Sound
7. Dan's Love Song
8. Bodhidharma
9. Hallelujah
10. The Reply

R.B.S. y'all be waiting for this one for a while and it's finally here. The debut LP from SUNAMI 

Tracklisting -

1. Y.S.A.B.

2. Dirty Work

3. 10 Toes Down

4. No Heart

5. Six

6. Think About It

7. Contempt of Cop

8. Defraud

At the apex of Fury’s short and startling rise, from a providential birth in late 2013 through era-defining performances at America’s Hardcore fest in 2014 and 2015, the Orange County five-piece has delivered Paramount, a debut full-length album of grace, erudition, and effortless virtuosity that guarantees Fury’s induction into the tiny fraternity of epochal hardcore bands — e.g., Embrace, Unbroken, Mental — in whose sonic singularity and aesthetic intelligence the best minds of successive generations have seen themselves reflected. Paramount is impossible to characterize in the usual terms of A-meets-B direct influence: maybe you hear Burn, maybe you hear Outburst or Beyond or Supertouch, but no combination of such references conveys the subtlety of the songwriting, the precision of the musicianship, or the ferocity of Jeremy Stith’s vocal performance, by way of which one encounters the best written and most cleverly phrased hardcore lyrics in recent memory. Paramount is, as they say in the groves of academe, sui generis. And yet to apprehend the lyric sheet’s overt intertextuality (no less than Shakespeare, Don Delillo and Praise’s Andy Norton, among others, are given co-writing credit), to hear the multiplicity of guest vocalists, to spend the 12 minutes required to read the voluminous thanks list — all this is to know, as the band itself surely does, that Paramount belongs no more to the individuals who recorded it than to the entire roiling, loving, terrifying, inspiring, hateful, romantic, literate, ignorant, fantastically dynamic culture that gave rise to it.

Tracklisting:
1. Danse
2. Thin Line
3. Novo
4. Damage Is Done
5. In Extremis
6. The Fury
7. Death Yellows Life and Reason
8. Leviathan
9. Duality of Man
10. The Feeling

PRESSING INFORMATION

Test Press (out of 17)
1st Press Black (out of 300)
1st Press Clear Purple w/Black Streaks (out of 500)
1st Press Opaque Purple (out of 1200)
2nd Press Opaque Pink (out of 500)
3rd Press Metallic Gold (out of 300) *Run For Cover Exclusive*
3rd Press Opaque Blue (out of 500)
Royal Blue Cassette (out of 500)

Track List:

1. BACK 2 U
2. Sour
3. California Sober
4.  Let Go
5. All That I'm Not
6. Love Feels Like
7. Bloodshot Eyes
8. Sinking
9. Desaturated
10. Call My Name

The debut LP from London UK thrashers BIG CHEESE!!! 

Track List:
1. Penine Scrubs
2. Mad At The World
3. IFMB
4. Heartbreak Ball
5. Tired Children In D Minor
6. Punishment Park
7. Write-Off
8. Tower To The Sun
9. Identity

PRESSING INFORMATION

Black (out of 500)

Tracklist
1. Color You
2. Leap Years
3. Blur My Memory
4. The Gate
5. Your Hazel Tree
6. Orange Leaf
7. Esruc
8. Slow to Let Go
9. Topanga
10. Giant’s Despair
11. So Far From Me

One Step Closer has always believed that hardcore is limitless. On All You Embrace, the band puts that theory into practice. Every release from the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania band has seen them exploring the sonic overlaps of hardcore, emo, and ‘90s alternative rock without an iota of self-consciousness, or pretension, creeping into the mix. “We know what we want to do with the band,” says vocalist Ryan Savitski. “We’re just naturally writing what feels right to us.” What feels right is All You Embrace, a collection of 11 songs that show One Step Closer reaching for something deeply honest and, as always, authentic.

With founding members Savitski and guitarist Ross Thompson at the helm of One Step Closer, alongside newest addition Colman O’Brien, the three were able to fearlessly guide One Step Closer in new directions. “There was never a conversation about us trying to sound more emo or sound more hardcore, it was just us doing what we were feeling and fully committing to that,” says Thompson. With All You Embrace, that commitment is palpable. It’s why you can hear every element of One Step Closer throughout the record, as they expound upon every idea until each one has achieved its full potential. The result is a record that’s bigger, catchier, and moodier than anything they’ve done before, while still feeling exactly like One Step Closer.

“I wanted to showcase One Step Closer in its fullest state,” says Savitski. “Every single part of the band, I wanted it to be there. I wanted us to be 100% ourselves and be as authentic to our band as we could possibly be.” For fans of From Me To You, there are songs like “Blur My Memory,” which show the passionate melodic hardcore the band built its name on is still part of the program. But it’s immediately followed by “The Gate,” a song that taps into the expansive reaches the band hinted at on This Place You Know and put on full display with the powerful follow-up EP, Songs For The Willow.

Recorded with Jon Markson, who also played bass on the album, along with Connor McAuliffe on drums, All You Embrace finds One Step Closer refreshed and ready to try anything and everything. “No idea was shot down,” says Thompson, “We weren’t really thinking about if people were going to think we were lame for having a piano track on the record or for Ryan singing more. We tried everything to make it sound as good as we possibly could.”

In addition to the masterful ears of Markson, the band did two separate writing sessions with Knocked Loose’s Isaac Hale and Citizen’s Mat Kerekes. Across three songs each, Hale and Kerekes helped One Step Closer embrace their sonic evolution, giving the band full permission to commit to their distinct vision. “This was the first time we’d ever done something like this,” says Savitski. These collaborative environments, working with songwriters they’d long respected, allowed One Step Closer to take bigger swings and approach the album with a newfound clarity. “They helped push us and give us the courage to take some of these creative leaps,” says Thomspon.

The leaps made in the music reflect the lyrical themes that Savitski dug into throughout All You Embrace. “I don’t feel like a kid anymore, he says. “There’s been so much change since the last record—losing members, losing relationships, losing friends, touring a lot, seeing your friends and family less—and this record captures all the changes in our lives since then.” But for all that loss, One Step Closer found ways to regroup and rebuild. With the addition of O’Brien on guitar prior to Songs for the Willow, Savitski and Thompson found themselves a new creative partner. At every step of the process, O’Brien didn’t just fill a void, he became an indispensable part of One Step Closer’s backbone.

“We’ve lost things, but we’ve given and we’ve gained things, and it’s capturing all of those emotions into a set of songs. With change, you have to either embrace it or deal with it, but all the change for us was for the right reasons.” That cumulative feeling of loss, growth, and hard-earned perspective is what makes songs like “Leap Years” so moving. It allows Savitski to dig into the feelings of people entering and exiting his life, in the same way he taps in and out of worlds while on tour.

By the record’s end, the one-two punch of “Giant’s Despair” and “So Far From Me” fills the album with a bittersweet feeling of one journey ending just as another is about to begin. In each chorus of “So Far From Me” when Savitski sings, “But when it swallows me whole tonight / I’ll just keep on running / Back again see you soon / And the next time to say goodbye / Goodbye,” his words carry even more weight. You’ve seen exactly where he’s been and what lies ahead, all in one album.

Taken in full, All You Embrace is the sound of One Step Closer honoring their past while building a future that looks more open, more creative, and more expansive. It’s a place where records like Start Today, Diary, and Floral Green are all in conversation with one another. “We’ve honed in on a central vibe and aesthetic that really speaks to all of us,” says Thompson. “It encapsulates exactly who we’ve become.” When asked who that is, Thomspon answers swiftly and decisively, “We’re One Step Closer, a straight edge band from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.” Sometimes the answers you’re searching for are right in front of you all along.

END IT hail from Baltimore, MD and they want you to know it. Formed in 2017, the five-piece have pride for the city and often address the unease mixed with hope that stems from the community they live in. The band came on strong with the release of their self-titled EP the same year they started, and followed it up with 2020’s One Way Track, gaining them notoriety amongst the hardcore scene. END IT are set to release follow-up Unpleasant Living on their label home Flatspot Records this Spring. Recorded with Kevin Bernsten at Developing Nations Recording, Unpleasant Living delivers with ferocity and purpose. The message? Mind your business.

The band takes heavy influence from ‘90s hardcore, having already drawn comparsions to acts like Leeway, Gut Instinct, and Maximum Penalty. They’ve also shared the stage with a diverse group of artists, ranging from Cro-Mags and Life Of Agony to Turnstile and Lil Ugly Mane, and will add to that list this year as they plan to play shows as much as possible. With absolutely no sign of slowing down, END IT is to be liked at face value or not. The choice is yours.

Track Listing:

1. B.C.H.C
2. New Wage Slavery
3. L'appel Du Vide
4. 21
5. Hatekeeper
6. The Comeback
7. Hardhead
8. H.T.F.
9. Lifer
10. One Way Track
11. Give Up
12. Vas A Morir
13. Wishlist
14. Blind Faith
15. Apolitical
16. End It

Anxious’ second album Bambi arrives this winter on Run For Cover Records. It’s been a whirlwind few years for the Fairfield, Connecticut five-piece – since the release of their debut album Little Green House, there’s been little time for anything other than consistent touring with bands like Bayside, Drug Church and The Wonder Years. Somewhere during that endless grind, vocalist Grady Allen was sitting in a hotel room and stumbled upon a name typed into a long-forgotten memo on his phone: Bambi. “We should have named the band Bambi,” he recalls admitting to his bandmates. Bambi stuck with the band after that night and eventually it evolved from a “what-if” into the name of Anxious’ second full-length album.

Bambi is a record of remarkable growth, depth, ambition, and energy. It takes all the unsolvable and unavoidable problems of exiting adolescence and makes them resonate in urgent and authentic new ways. The album has deep roots in the storied lineage of Northeast tri-state hardcore and emo, but it also fully embraces the widescreen alternative rock songwriting at which Anxious have previously only hinted. It’s a statement of purpose, the kind of album that comes from a band reconciling where they’ve been with where they want to go. Bambi is the sound of Anxious putting everything on the line–and coming out on the other side better than ever. 

Inspired by “big swing” records like Blink-182’s self-titled or Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity, Anxious set out to redefine the band without losing sight of what made them work in the first place. Tracks like “Head & Spine,” “Sunder,” and “Tell Me Why” showcase the scope of Anxious’ evolution, tapping crunchy ‘90s rock guitarwork, layered ‘60s-esque harmonies, and crisp, modern production that captures the unrivaled energy of seeing the band play live.

Track Listing:

1. Never Said
2. Bambi’s Theme
3. Some Girls
4. Counting Sheep
5. Audrey Go Again
6. Head & Spine
7. Tell Me Why
8. Sunder
9. Next Big Star
10. Jacy
11. I’ll Be Around

The plan was to start a band that was all longtime friends. The idea was to embrace the scene they grew up in. 

The conspirators are as follows: Matty Matheson (singer), who grew up in the Niagara hardcore scene (with his late 90's band, Hanging Hearts), and who has gone on to become a chef and restaurateur. Wade MacNeil (guitarist), an active member of Alexisonfire and Doom’s Children. The Romano brothers, Daniel(guitarist) and Ian(drummer), rock’n’roll veterans from Daniel Romano’ Outfit and Tommy Major (bassist) of Young Guv -Tommy and the Commies - Daniel Romano’s Outfit 

“It  was during the pandemic and we were all back home,” says Matheson. The conversations began - to make something heavy, noisy and touched on the classic 80’s hardcore we all love so much. Everyone showed up with a bunch of riffs, scraps of lyrics, talked influences and principles, bounced ideas back and forth, then got chinese food. “We wrote 10 songs in one day,” says Matheson, “and the next day we recorded them.”

What resulted is the band Pig Pen. And, from this flash of inspiration, the group’s debut full length, Mental Madness, will be released  on Flatspot Records June 27th. It’s tough and it’s harsh, the music is dark and noisy, and it’s got depth. There’s an ease to the energy too that spiritually aligns it with those rare fully realized hardcore demos from the classic era — one of those golden, hallowed megaphone announcements that show up now and then in the scene from a band with good ideas, who seemingly came out of nowhere, but who knew what they were from the jump, and who just did it.  

Due to the band members’ extracurriculars, Pig Pen is starting off as a contained explosion and a distilled expression, which is what the music itself is about. The subject matter on
Mental Madness sticks to themes that Matheson describes as “mental health shit”: topics like isolation, loneliness, and “letting your mind destroy you.” A representative sample: “Teach me to hate myself, teach me not to care,” bellows Matheson in “Mental Mentality,” the band’s first single—“I’m sick, I’m sick, I’m sick,” during the bridge. These are words that might ring an alarm bell, but sound perfectly at home in a hardcore song, but are they ever just hardcore lyrics? 

”You can be having a beautiful day, surrounded by friends,” Matheson explains, “and your brain can continuously ruin it. No matter how good or bad your life is, you can still hate yourself. I've got to ask myself why am I feeling the ways I'm feeling?” In other words, the record is about experiencing life, feeling all the feelings in the sunshine and the dark corners.

If that’s what the songs are about, the band is about something different: Just being a band. “Our love of each other is what makes it”, says Matheson. “Joyousness,” concurs Dan Romano. Friends having fun. It comes across on the record as an expression of happiness. Is that a dichotomy? Not exactly. “There’s a sense of community in that hardcore scene we came up in,” says Romano, “and those early enlightenments, they stay with you.”  And though everyone in the band has branched out since those days, “hardcore is always the same in some ways,” Matheson says, “this is a scene of of giving, of sharing, of going the fuck off. That’s it, really.” That’s Pig Pen. 

Pig Pen ‘Mental Madness’

Produced by Pig Pen
Engineered by Ian Romano 
Mixed by Arthur Rizk
Mastered by Alan Douches

Rising out of Baltimore, MD's groundbreaking hardcore scene in 2021, Jivebomb's ruthless blend of hardcore punk and intense live show quickly made them a band to watch. Entering the studio in summer 2024 with Ben Greenberg (Uniform) at Circular Ruin in Brooklyn, NY, Jivebomb knew they wanted to keep their raw, blitzed-out energy while diving into heavier territory. With the release of "Ethereal," Jivebomb has delivered a unique and rapid debut that urges repeat listens while building anticipation for what the band will create next.

Track Listing:

1. The Impact
2. Estrela
3. Survival Aint Taught
4. Wise Choice
5. Fates Domain
6. Rhythm Zero
7. Charm
8. Mistaken
9. Seraphim (Marina's Song)
10. Disfigured Identity