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.
HUNNY was born out of the tight-knit North LA indie-rock scene of the mid-2010s, sharing stages and even band members with acts like The Neighbourhood and Bad Suns from an early age. On the back of a shimmering blend of new-wave sheen, shoegaze gloom and angular guitar rock – all underwritten with cheeky, California cool sensibilities – the childhood friends racked up millions of streams of their self-released 2015 EP, Pain/ Ache/ Loving, thanks to undeniable songs like the hit “Cry For Me.” By the time the band had secured a record deal with legendary Epitaph Records and released their 2019 debut full-length, Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes., outlets like Alternative Press were hailing HUNNY – vocalist/guitarist Jason Yarger, guitarist Jake Goldstein, bassist Kevin Grimmett and drummer Joey Anderson – for their spin on “perfunctory electronic and new-wave pop, teeming with love, heartbreak, neuroses and impeccably sweet dancing shoes.”