“Honestly, we just wanted to make a punk rock record,” vocalist Ben Roy says. “Plain and simple. We all had a bunch of shit to get off our chests, and we tried to make something that didn’t get stuck behind the walls of genre. It’s so fucking tired and boring and fabricated to be in a project where someone is always yelling, ‘But this isn’t our sound!’ Shut up, you fucking dork. Just play music, and play it from the fucking heart.”
Ironically, there might be a lie in the first sentence there, as A Dying Light is anything but just a punk rock record, though that feels like both Arson Charge’s sonic backbone and ethos. Taking clear influence from hardcore punk, thrash metal, southern fried riff-ery, and groove, the group sound like a parallel universe version of Cancer Bats where piss and vinegar is marinated with cocaine and mary jane (metaphorically). This is the most engaging and alive any punk record has sounded in years, and it’s clear that Arson Charge’s light is not dying soon. The full record reflects on the ways in which their own personal candles were at the end, needing the connection to create sort of a mecha-candle, with a gleefully long wick (that’s a “w,” editor).
“A New Throne” features the lyric, “Can I do this on my own?” and it’s very clear from the band’s sound, underlying themes, and general frustration with where they are in life at the moment that the answer is a resounding hell no, Roy shares:
“A Dying Light was a catharsis for me. I was sexually abused as a kid at a Catholic summer camp in New Hampshire, and it really wasn’t until the last five or six years that I’ve started to fully address all the ways in which that bullshit shaped me. I also divorced after 19 years of partnership; it felt like my life was fucking crumbling. I started dating, and it felt like I didn’t know how to love properly. I had to try and reinvent myself. I had to start working. I know Justin (Hackl) was in a similar place after a series of debilitating health issues repeatedly sidelined him in the hospital. He stared down death multiple times. Then came him having to let go of some beloved creative projects. Basically, we both felt like our lives were unraveling. We needed an outlet to voice all the pain and discomfort that comes from trying to rebuild and rediscover identity and self-worth when the ground is shaking beneath you. So we just poured how we felt into this album. Anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, self-pity, arrogance, hope … It’s all there; everything someone will experience when it feels like they’re losing it all, but they’re not quite ready to throw in the towel.”
A Dying Light is out on Friday, and you can preorder it from Anxious & Angry. Follow Arson Charge on Facebook and Instagram for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Arson Charge
