It’s hard to be ahead of the curve. Long before the Taco Bell partnerships and Grammy awards that are now synonymous with hardcore, Angel Du$t were forging a solitary path. They were a band pushing the limits of their hardcore roots alongside their love of indie rock and pop sensibility. Born from Baltimore hardcore icons Trapped Under Ice, a pioneering band in their own right, Angel Du$t have spent the last decade blending their brand of high energy, aggressive punk with unlikely influences like The Lemonheads, Violent Femmes and The Feelies for a devoted but niche fanbase that bought in early. On their new album Cold 2 The Touch we find the band confidently crafting their most powerful and seamless mix of freaked out rock and roll yet.


Angel Du$t has never been a band keen to do the same thing twice. The early releases displayed a poppier side of songwriter Justice Tripp but they still felt firmly rooted in hardcore subculture. 2016’s Rock The Fuck on Forever saw them hit their stride. They blast through hook heavy punk, with the album clocking in at 13 songs in 21 minutes. There’s no fat to trim just pure rocking jubilance. But by 2019 they were back with Pretty Buff, an album that would define their commitment to change and experimentation. If you had told me I would see Justice playing an acoustic guitar backed by tambourine and bongos, I wouldn’t have believed you but they were doing it and it was rocking me. Since then the band has continued to mutate from release to release, developing their own flavour of aggressive rock music, “whether you like it or not,” in Tripp’s own words. That brings us to Cold 2 The Touch.


The album opens with “Pain is a Must,” where drummer Nick Lewis’ drum fill kicks the door in and sets the tone, uniting the past eras of the band under one roof. Heavy chromatic riffs under a layer of acoustic guitar back up Justice’s hook heavy melody interspersed with his signature bark. When you hear the line “I know pain is a must / ANGEL DUST” it’s hard not to front flip off of whatever’s in front of you. The title track blasts through the speakers like a runaway train before cutting abruptly into a heavy halftime that brings us into “I’m The Outside.” Straying from the histrionic hardcore of the opening tracks, this song brings us to an unlikely intersection between The Strokes and the classic 90’s radio rock you might hear in your dad’s garage. This song is the mantra for the album. They’re not on the outside, they ARE the outside and that’s exactly where they want to be.

Something I’ve always appreciated about Angel Du$t is their willingness to flirt with styles that punk and hardcore purists might write off on first impression. That’s the space we find ourselves in as we kick off the next act on “Jesus Head.” The song opens with a riff that is so classic rock that, performed with less confidence, could feel silly but they turn it into something undeniably cool. The box that contains Angel Du$t has thin walls and they use this song to remind us that they’re not afraid to kick a hole in it. An experimental freak out full of reversed drums and ambient noise takes us into “Zero,” with a riff reminiscent of early Queens of the Stone Age, featuring a guest appearance from fellow punk experimentalist Wes Eisold of American Nightmare, Cold Cave and Some Girls. Spoken word echoes over one of the hardest musical moments on the album.


“Downfall” is a groove heavy rocker that feels like John Bonham playing for the Rollins Band. It’s hard to say much about this song that isn’t summed up by the phrase “beast mode.” The pivot from this song to “Du$t” serves to emphasize one of the most vulnerable sounding moments on the album before the vibey acoustic guitar and bongos take a sharp turn into straight up hardcore, reminding you that the world they come from is always just beneath the surface.


On “Nothing I Can’t Kill” the guitars nod to Y2K indie rock with wiry riffs whose call and response bring to mind early Interpol with driving drums and fuzzed out bass providing the backbone. “Man On Fire” brings the tempo back down to earth with riffs that bring to mind a high desert scene. The drums and bass shine together, locked in and tight. A feature from Frank Carter of Gallows reminds us where we are before the riff comes back even heavier. “The Knife” feels like a second suite of the song that precedes it. More heavy desert sounds and a psychedelic guitar solo interspersed with blast beats carries us into the final track. “The Knife” is classic Justice Tripp. This song fits here just as comfortably as it would on Trapped Under Ice’s last LP Heat Wave. Groove heavy hardcore that proves confidently that the band has not lost a step. With 11 songs clocking in just under 30 minutes this album demands that you let it play again.

While Angel Du$t may not have benefitted from the pop-inflected hardcore boom of the 2020’s to the degree that some of their peers have, they’ve proven that they were here first and they’re not going anywhere. They’re for the heads and the rock fried freaks. They’re the underdogs and on a long enough timeline the underdog wins.

Pre-order Cold 2 The Touch by Angel Du$t HERE