Candy’s Good to Feel became available to the public at midnight on 9/28/18, as I am writing this I have probably listened to the record 5 times since its debut and it is a only a mere nine hours later.
Albeit 2018 has yielded some outstanding debut full-lengths (W.A.R. and In Promise of Another Tomorrow, to cite a couple examples), Candy is the band that modern hardcore desperately needed. The previous few years have produced their fair share of cosplay like bands that are seemingly carbon copies of outfits that existed in previous decades or by contrast bands that have opted to make music so heavy and so metallic that it is barely reminiscent of the genre of hardcore… if reminiscent at all. Candy does not fall into either of these established lanes.
Candy is a hardcore band, there is no way around it. You can’t classify it as anything else other than perhaps “extreme music” and extreme is a very fitting adjective for their sound. Visually taking influence from the Madchester rave scene of the early '90s and sonically taking influence from Burning Spirits Japanese hardcore and NYHC classics, Candy’s amalgamation of nods makes them come off as entirely new and original, while not leaving the realm of what hardcore is at its base.
Songs like “Joy of Life” paying homage to Death Side and the ethereal vibe of Stone Roses surfacing on Good to Feel’s closing track “Bigger Than Yours” are but a couple examples of moments where Candy’s predecessors make brief obvious appearances on this record.
Good to Feel lyrically deals with many a hot button of our modern timeframe. Songs like “Lust for Destruction," “Systematic Death," and “Human Target” bring pressing issues such as environmental depletion, social unrest and police brutality to the forefront in a clear distinct way. Candy depicts the harrowing issues of our current slow societal collapse in a manner where it almost seems like they are the theme music for the apocalypse as opposed to those trying to stop it.
Each track is necessary to the entire record and very few if any are skippable. This is hardcore in the modern age, this is moving forward, this is new, this is real and this is what you need to be listening to. Candy is a band for the contemporary hardcore fan, someone who isn’t living in the past or trying to break out of the supposed “confines” of the genre.
Go Listen to Good to Feel and purchase a copy from Triple-B Records.
Tagged: candy
