Chasing Fridays: Syracuse hardcore madness, Home Front, Carson Clay Q&A, more

New year, new blogs. I took the last couple weeks off of publishing Chasing Fridays to spend time with my family and travel around upstate New York on very little sleep so I could see 15 hardcore bands in Syracuse on New Years Day. The adventure was going to be an endurance test regardless, but I ended up hitting some unexpected roadblocks when I experienced a flat tire on i-90 in the middle of the night, stranding me in Rochester for a day longer than I intended. And then when I finally returned to Pittsburgh I was stricken with the seasonal cold that everyone I know has been fighting for the last month, which put me out of writing commission for another couple days.

Karly Hartzman on Wednesday getting heavier, ‘Yep Definitely’ years, biggest regrets, more

“I don’t want to get more singer-songwritery. I want to curate a space for people to go nuts at a show.”

Chasing SundaysEli Enis

That was last week. This week, I'm back in the saddle and the words are flowing. For the inaugural Chasing Fridays of 2026, I wrote about my time at the NYD hardcore matinee, which gave me an opportunity to go long on hardcore in these pages for the first time in a while. I was focusing my energy on other genres for the final few months of 2025, but I re-upped by hardcore dosage over the holidays and am now feeling re-energized about what's going on in that world of music. On a related tip, I wrote about finally coming around to the new Home Front record, and why a scene of hardcore musicians in the Northeast are making some of the middest alt-rock in the world. Plus, a review of a great new dream-pop tune, and an interview with slowcore prodigy Sign Crushes Motorist about his cloud-rap alter ego Carson Clay.

Home Front - Watch It Die

I finally came around to the new Home Front record over the holidays. The Alberta band's 2023 LP, Games of Power, was one of the most inspired punk records I've heard in recent years, a battalion of anti-fascist anthems that blended icy new-wave synths with spirited Oi vocals and a pinch of Suicide-al art damage. Watch it Die, which arrived in November of last year, lacks the hardcore tinge of its predecessor, favoring more complex synth leads and major-key riffs that sounded wimpy to me on the first couple spins. Further listens have revealed the album's special nuances, particularly how the everything's-doomy-but-don't-give-up lyrics add a heavy-hearted weight to these songs that's perhaps more impactful than when Home Front are spewing riled-up Oi anger.

The chorus in "Between the Waves" perfectly captures the aching dread of living in a dying world: "And it kills me to say/things will never be the same again," Graeme McKinnon sings with a Robert Smith wail that's both romantic and pained. Cries for resistance are important, but I like that Home Front are clear-headed enough to make space for eulogizing what's gone for good. In the album's most charged-up track, "For the Children (Fuck All)," McKinnon seethes about gentrification, homeless encampment sweeps, and the "fuck all" that's left for those living on the streets, fighting for scraps while the ruling class consolidate their power. That Home Front are a Canadian band, hailing from a country that many Americans wrongly mistake for a liberal paradise, adds extra urgency to their messaging and serves as a reminder that we're all part of the same globalized struggle.

Dream Fatigue - "be your anchor"

There's a scene of musicians in the Northeastern U.S. right now who are making some of the best hardcore in the world, and some of the worst, most mind-numbingly listless alt-rock. Following in the footsteps of Fleshwater (the side-turned-main project of Boston hardcore brawlers Vein), members of Discontent, Final Resting Place, Balmora, Sanction, etc. spent 2025 working on bands like Burnside, Evelyn, Nodding Off, and Dream Fatigue. All of those groups minus Burnside (who dropped last minute) toured the East Coast together last month, and while they don't sound identical to one another, they're all drawing from the same murky well of third-wave emo, nu-gaze, and what Ephyra Recordings/Balmora vocalist Senti recently called "motocross core," I.E. hardcore kids doing straight-faced rehashes of mid-2000s radio dreck like Fuel and Lifehouse.

While I'm always fascinated by how younger musicians are re-contextualizing older sounds under the cool, tasteful veneer of hardcore and its related sub-genres, there's a limit to the "actually, this is dope" revisionism that I'm able to tolerate. Bands like Fuel and Lifehouse were horrible the first time around, and while I'm not going to complain if "All Around Me" comes on at the bar, I'd have to consume lethal amounts of post-irony to think that unabashed Flyleaf covers are an exciting bellwether for what this burgeoning scene has in-store for 2026. However, I'm less offended by the cringey influences than I am by the terminal inability for any of these bands to write a memorable song. The Evelyn/Dream Fatigue/Nodding Off gig was one of most tunelessly boring shows I saw last year, and the new Dream Fatigue single isn't changing my mind.

Dream Fatigue are a five-piece who are masterminded by drummer Matt Wood, the founding drummer of Vein and Fleshwater who departed both of those bands in 2023. Supposedly, Wood was pretty involved with the writing in Fleshwater, too, which is why Dream Fatigue's late 2024 debut, the lady in the sky, sounds so similar. To be fair, new single "be your anchor" is a half-step different. Singer Jonali McFadden, who does have a good voice, raps a little bit during the second verse and belts super loud in the final chorus, offering more than most singers in this milieu who treat vocals like an afterthought and also have no chops. Wood is a fantastic drummer, and the groove he locks into here is kinetic, but all of these positive attributes are hampered by the fact that "be your anchor" sounds more like the idea of a song than an actual tune. It whooshes by in two minutes and leaves very little melodic or dynamic impression. At least Flyleaf made bangers.

Bellcave - "Guess Who I Saw In Paris"

"Guess Who I Saw in Paris" reminds me of the mid-2010s, back when I was first getting into indie-rock and everything I was hearing sounded new to me, whether or not it was actually moving the needle forward. Bellcave, a new-ish band from New York City, aren't trying to reinvent the wheel with a song like "Guess Who I Saw In Paris." They're just trying to make exquisite dream-pop that swirls like a snow globe and spangles like Christmas tinsel. Their latest track sounds a little bit like Alvvays, Beach Hourse, Mazzy Star, and even early Hand Habits, a band I was listening to repeatedly in early 2017 when I first developed a taste for this kind of music. And I still have that hankering today, especially for dream-pop songs as elegant as "Guess Who I Saw in Paris." This is excellent.

Every time I looked at the flier I had the same reaction: "Fuck, that's a perfect lineup. I should go." So I did. I was out until 1:30 a.m. on New Years Eve and then woke up at 7 a.m. NYD, hopped in the car, and drove through the snowy backroads of the Allegheny Forest on my six-hour solo trek from Pittsburgh to Syracuse, NY. The upstate city was pummeled with a record-breaking two feet of snow the day before I arrived, and when I pulled into town 20 minutes before the first band went on, the streets were caked in slippery powder that caused me to fishtail with every turn. Such conditions haven't stopped hardcore kids in Syracuse from putting on a New Years Day matinee show for nearly 30 years, save for a six-year block in the late 2010s (and then COVID in 2021) when the scene's old-heads stopped putting the effort in to keep the tradition alive.

In the 2020s, a new generation of hardcore bands and fans have revitalized the Syracuse scene, and the NYD matinee has once again become a destination event for hardcore fans up and down the east coast. This year's edition was a particularly momentous occasion. First off, the lineup was absolutely stacked with great bands young and old, including several of the best active U.S. hardcore acts (Combust, Scarab, C4), two absolute legends (Integrity, All Out War), and a slew of rising talent for the heads (Zero Mob, Terminator, Never Again). The bill was also a bittersweet celebration of all that Syracuse hardcore has achieved in the last few years. Deal With God and All 4 All are two of the most beloved bands in the city's ongoing hardcore resurgence, and DWG, who dropped their demo in 2021 and never released a full-length album, decided to make this gig their funeral. It was a remarkably powerful sendoff for a band going out at the top of their game.

The vibes for the day were established right in the first set, when I saw a dude stage-dive directly onto the concrete floor, bounce back up, and continue moshing to new Syracuse blood Wasting Away like nothing had happened. I grew up in Rochester and went to school in Albany, so I'm fully accustomed to how mercilessly hard people mosh in a snow-battered post-industrial city like Syracuse, At one point, C4's vocalist hollered, "All you big motherfuckers in the room, bully someone!" and the big motherfuckers in the room obeyed those orders. The frontman celebrated by tearing his beater off his body and ripping the last couple songs shirtless. C4 and their Boston sibling band Burning Lord were awesome, but the heat really got cranked when the Syracuse crew took the stage. Street Hassle, a NYHC band fronted by the matinee's promoter Lukas Reed (also of All 4 All), played a surprise three-song set that was pure chaos, and All 4 All had kids diving and singing along like they were fucking Negative Approach.

Nothing throughout the day compared to Deal With God's set, though. Not only were they crushingly powerful – heavy in a way that's meaningful rather than ignorant – but they created an atmosphere that was both poignant and sinister, which is very difficult for a hardcore band to pull off. They had the whole venue cast in red light and a rotating series of images on the screen behind the stage (a bible quote, a renaissance painting, some abstract photos, and a Chick tract that said "This was your life!"). People went apeshit for their lumbering, brooding form of metallic hardcore, and when frontman Dylan Baldi spoke about the importance of community and how the Syracuse scene has organically ballooned in recent years, everything going on – the energy in the room, the existential imagery, the sincerity in Baldi's voice – really moved me in a way that only great hardcore bands do. I low-rated Deal With God for most of their existence, but seeing the songs incite chaos in their own backyard totally opened my mind to their brilliance. A very good band who will not be forgotten.

The whole room clapped and cheered with an air of finality when Deal With God left the stage, but the night was far from over. Every time I go to one of these fests, a band who I didn't previously care about ends up playing one of my favorite sets of the day. This time, that band was Crush Your Soul, the newer side project of Mindforce frontman Jay Peta. Unlike the other popular Mindforce side-project, Mike Shaw's terrifyingly heavy band Fatal Realm, who also played this fest and whose 2024 demo I adore, I thought Crush Your Soul's 2024 and 2025 EP's were underwhelming, and their set at FYA 2025 didn't change my mind. This set was different. The band were visibly frustrated by the time the protracted sound check concluded, and they channeled that irritation into their performance, spawning the most violent dancing of the day.

There's a very specific energy that produces the most exciting dancefloors at a hardcore show like this. It can't be forced, it's incredibly volatile, and Crush Your Soul's set harnessed it perfectly. A couple dudes in the pit were beefing with each other and on the verge of fighting, but they never actually went there, instead using their flared testosterone to swing harder and kick scarier to the filthy breakdowns and toxic attitude that the band were emanating. At a Mindforce show, Peta's cracking jokes and lovingly dedicating tracks to his wife, while Shaw's riffs, as hard as they are, are littered with jaunty thrash flourishes. There's nothing jaunty about Crush Your Soul. Peta's mosh calls were humorless and every guitar part was written to induce real-life Tekken battles. When the guitarist grabbed the mic to scream, "beat the fuck out of each other!" with the no-nonsense fury of an angry father, you were either ducking or knuckling. In that context, Crush Your Soul finally made sense to me.

Crush Your Soul are from the Hudson Valley. There are a lot of amazing – and amazingly heavy – hardcore bands coming out of the Hudson Valley right now. In one way or another, all of those bands are paying homage to All Out War, the greatest upstate NY hardcore band ever, and, for my money, the scariest, nastiest sounding hardcore band of all time. All Out War have been making music for over 30 years. Some hardcore bands who've been around that long still sound pretty good live, such as Integrity, who played after All Out War at this fest. No band from All Out War's age cohort still sounds as good as they do. In 2015, I saw All Out War smoke every band younger than them at a fest in New Jersey. It's 2026, and All Out War are still smoking every band younger than them. Mike Score's shriek is monstrous in a way that's exceeds hyperbole. His bandmates play mosh parts that sound illegal.

I was in a breathless trance watching All Out War at this fest. There weren't any bands on the bill who I didn't like, and the bands I was most excited to see – Combust, Scarab, and C4, who dropped my three favorite hardcore LPs of 2025 – were all great. All Out War were just the best. They made all of the hours on the road – and all the money I spent on the flat tire I got leaving the fest at midnight – totally worth it. Plus, I got to microdose the regional pride of seeing All Out War tear an upstate NY venue to pieces. Although I haven't lived in New York in nearly a decade, I fell in love with hardcore in Albany and formed my understanding of the genre based on the sounds and customs of that area. I love hard mosh parts and even harder dancing because that was the environment I was exposed to going to shows there. I can no longer claim that scene, and I feel more at home in Pittsburgh anyways. But seeing the upstate/western New York hardcore landscape in a far better state than it was when I left made me happy.

Chasing Down

Liam McCay
of
Carson Clay, Sign Crushes Motorist, Dead Calm

Chasing Down is a Q&A series with artists, friends, and others of good taste.

I've been following the career of 20-year-old Irish musician Liam McCay for a few years now, having first found him through his wildly popular slowcore project Sign Crushes Motorist, and then further delving into his music under the monikers Dead Calm, Take Care, and Hold, all of which only encompass a sliver of his full discography. Lately, McCay has been focusing on his rap alias Carson Clay, having just released his debut album under that name, FUT Draft, the day after Christmas. It's a breezy 20 minutes of jerky cloud-rap that boasts production from cranes (xaviersobased, Nettspend, fakemink) and cloud-rocker Deer Park, as well as a bunch of McCay's own beats, including an interlude that sounds like a Godspeed! You Black Emperor instrumental.

Most of McCay's other projects are heavy-hearted and earnest, but FUT Draft is a silly, low-stakes good time. For this week's Chasing Down Q&A, I asked the young slowcore kingpin about going Carson Clay mode, his favorite rappers, making whatever kind of music he wants to, the best artists he discovered in 2025, and much more. Read the full interview below.

Tell me about the origins of Carson Clay and how the project has evolved musically and conceptually with FUT Draft.

Carson Clay is what I call myself when I rap. I got it from Mr. Bean's Holiday, it's the name of Willem Dafoe's character. The first EP was a mix of almost trap shit and cloud-rap, and its still pretty cloud-rap-based today. 

Who are your three favorite artists/bands that you discovered in 2025

Svn4vr, Love Spells and rosevile sucks are so good. Svn4vr is genuinely gonna change music, also shout out to derby, I want to see them collab with each other. The Love Spells music is just so fucking good, also very cool guy. Incredible moves like James Brown. rosevile sucks has the voice of a star, its like hearing Chris Martin sing before everyone else has. All three have the potential to be incredibly important in musical history, and I have no doubt that they will be.