Death Lens want to be in your ear at all times. They hide their ferocity underneath a thick veneer of style until the energy and chaos of one of their live shows leaves every audience member disarmed and forever changed. Off the strength of 2022’s No Luck, tours with Militarie Gun and Together Pangea, and the support of their hometown, Death Lens is releasing their new album, Cold World, May 3rd on Epitaph Records. For Death Lens, it’s all been building to this. Cold World is a departure from the early styles Death Lens mimicked as a young band, transmuting them into matured and brawny post-hardcore tinged rock songs. On record, Death Lens have an established habit of writing hard-nosed rock that combines West Coast reverbed-out surf punk with tight and bouncy Britrock, deceptively characterizing the band as exclusively chill and vibe-focused when live, a Death Lens show has all the energy of hardcore. Slick guitar sonics and sugary backing vocal harmonies that feel like the best parts of indie punk and shoegaze are the foundation of their style, but in a 200 capacity room, Death Lens brings the same winning concoction as Turnstile and Militarie Gun. In other words, these are the kinds of songs that become the soundtrack to enduring memories of nights of drunken, sweat-drenched singalongs.
What would a Halloween mixtape be without a sequel? Breakout Epitaph Records genre-benders Magnolia Park have heard your cries, and they are prepared to deliver. The hard-charging, prolific five-piece act from Orlando—vocalist Joshua Roberts, guitarists Tristan Torres and Freddie Criales, drummer Joe Horsham, and keyboardist Vincent Ernst—are set to follow up their 2022 debut LP Baku's Revenge with a brand-new project, Halloween Mixtape II, out on October 27, and their kaleidoscopic fusion of sound is more innovative than ever. The spiritual sequel to their 2021 Halloween Mixtape, Halloween Mixtape II expands on the narrative around Magnolia Park’s fictional universe and its characters Baku, Heart Eater, SoulEater, Dream Eater, MoonEater, Pumpkin Eater, and the Reaper. "We just want to create soundtracks for our characters," says guitarist/songwriter Tristan Torres. “That's why we have the Eater EP series — they're all introducing individual characters. Then they come together for this Halloween mixtape moment."