Tampa metallic hardcore band Contention just surprise-released a new EP, Nuclear Summer. The band quietly teased the release with physical CDs at last weekend's Sound and Fury festival, and the EP just hit streaming services alongside preorders for a 7-inch pressing via DAZE.
Nuclear Summer features two new Contention tracks, “Second Sun” and “Blank Stare,” along with a cover of “X on Our Knees X / Upside Your Head” by ’90s straight edge power violence band The Swarm, also known as Knee Deep in the Dead. John Howard (Seed of Pain, Magnitude) recorded and produced the EP at War House Studio.
The Swarm connection goes back to Contention’s beginnings, with vocalist Cosmo Vidussi saying the band has cited them as an influence since its first practice in 2019. As for the EP’s bleak outlook, Vidussi describes Nuclear Summer as a response to a world increasingly defined by violence, political decay, and the threat of annihilation.
“Modernity brings no enlightenment, only more refined methods of annihilation,” Vidussi says. “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.”
He continues: “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.”
Vidussi sums up the release more succinctly: “Nuclear Summer, hardcore for the end times.”
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The vinyl version of Nuclear Summer is available for pre-order via DAZE.
