The weekend just past was Sound And Fury weekend, the massive Los Angeles festival that remains the flagship annual event on the hardcore calendar. We’re soaking in the afterglow. Since their set, Haywire and God’s Hate have released fresh music, and now Contention—the fiery Tampa straight‑edge collective—has joined the roster with new material.
Contention embody a wild-eyed, ardent devotion to ’90s‑style heavy hardcore, and their excellent full‑length Artillery From Heaven ranked among my favorite hardcore records of 2024. Yesterday evening, the group revealed that a new EP titled Nuclear Summer would drop at midnight. It’s here now, and it’s as great as expected.
Nuclear Summer features two crushing new tracks, “Second Sun” and “Blank Stare,” along with a cover of the Swarm’s 1999 straight‑edge anthem “Upside Your Head,” preceded by its “X On Our Knees” intro. This is primal, intense, and deeply satisfying moshing music. Here’s what vocalist Cosmo Vidussi has to say about it:
Modernity brings no enlightenment, only more refined methods of annihilation. Annihilation of the enemy. Annihilation of the self. Our leaders have shed their increasingly thin facades of humanity. The masses shamble through life in a drug and media fueled haze. They worship a machine that grinds them to dust and uses them for fuel. Cities are leveled in our name. Bombs are assembled with our tax dollars. We’re held hostage by a small group of deranged degenerates with nuclear arsenals and a lust for ruin.
Are these the final days? Or is the suffering of modernity only a single day swallowed by a quarter eon of unchecked brutality?
Two new tracks: “Second Sun” and “Blank Stare.” Two covers by the Swarm, a band we’ve cited as an inspiration since our first band practice in 2019. Nuclear Summer, hardcore for the end times.
Hell yeah. Listen below.
TOUR DATES:
9/25 – Gainesville, FL @ The Ox
9/26 – Daytona Beach, FL @ Iron Horse Saloon (Nightshift Party Weekend)
11/12 – Nashville, TN @ Eastside Bowl *
11/13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade Hell *
11/14 – Tampa, FL @ The Orpheum *
11/16 – Miami, FL @ Lincoln’s Beard *
* with Pain Of Truth, Madball, Rotting Out, & xforever warx
The Nuclear Summer EP is out now on DAZE.
