Denver hardcore band Tunnel Jumper write about what has been getting under their skin: MAGA politics, corporate money, environmental damage, healthcare for profit, algorithmic social media, and their own stubbornness. Musically, they work the dissonant, metallic side of hardcore, with beatdown, 2-step, crossover and slam spread across 11 tracks in 26 minutes. “Half Gone” is out September 4 through Mean World Records.
JP Lichtenberg handled the lyrics, engineering and production himself at Plague Rot Records in Denver, before Taylor Young mixed the record at The Pit and Brad Boatright mastered it at Audiosiege. Back Lip, Playn’ For Keeps, Frontierer and Hostages all turn up along the way, tying the record back to the people and bands around Tunnel Jumper.
The first track, “God Wrought”, is only 75 seconds long and has a single vocal line: “Look what man has built.” JP sees it as a quick preview of where the rest of the album is heading.
“The ‘trailer’ to the album; 75 seconds showcasing what the album is all about and 1 vocal line ‘Look what man has built’. A decaying planet, rising poverty, degradation of the nutrition in our food, greed over altruism, and hate/bigotry becoming the zeitgeist — all topics covered by the lyrics throughout the album.”
Denver comes straight into “5280” feat. Back Lip. The title refers to the city’s elevation, 5,280 feet above sea level, and JP wrote the song as a direct shot at the MAGA movement. Evan from Colorado Springs hardcore band Back Lip closes it out.
“This song is a middle-finger to the MAGA movement — ‘Misery at your rotting core, fear & hatred flow through veins of red’. We wanted the album to really open up with a strong message and get the blood flowing, so we came up with a classic hardcore callout for the bridge ‘My air is thin, like the ice that you stand on, my air is thin, from a mile up fuck you’. A lot of us are fed up with the current right-wing administration, and the ‘ice that you stand on’ is also a play on words regarding the administration’s use of ICE. We ended the song with a feature from our friend Evan of Back Lip, which is a CO Springs-based hardcore band. His style really fit the piece, and having another CO band hit a feature made this feel like a CO hardcore anthem to us.”
“Big Man” pulls the focus back to JP himself, specifically the line between self-confidence, conceit and the kind of stubbornness that can look very different years later.
“More of a personal song; this one covers my struggle with balancing self confidence & conceit. I’ve always been a bit hard-headed, and while that served me at certain points in my life, there are moments that I look back on and wish I had allowed myself to be more shaped by my friends/loved ones.”
He was listening heavily to Terror’s “One With The Underdogs” and Hatebreed’s “Perseverance” when “Chewing Bullets” feat. Playn’ For Keeps took shape. He wanted one posi-core song among the heavier subjects elsewhere on “Half Gone”, built around resilience and the line “the hammer breaks, my anvil remains”.
“I was listening to One With The Underdogs by Terror and Perseverance by Hatebreed a lot at the time and really wanted a posi-core style song on the record to balance out all of the negative topics–something to motivate and reinforce that humans are resilient & ‘tougher than luck’. Whether it be a personal struggle or the hopelessness many of us feel about the direction of our country, if we keep showing up and pushing through the hard shit, we will outlast the hardship–‘the hammer breaks, my anvil remains’. We’ve been homies with the Playn’ For Keeps crew since day-1, so I asked if John wanted to do a feature with us. He came over with some ideas and we riffed on it for a bit. I had already landed on the hammer/anvil metaphor, and because P4K is from Weld County, it sparked the idea of ‘welded-strong’ and the whole thing came together. John is an awesome vocalist, incredible dad, and just a great person all around; love that we got to have another CO hardcore feature for the record.”
Frontierer’s guest spot on “Homosapien” goes back to the band’s name. Tunnel Jumper took it from a song on Frontierer’s “Orange Mathematics”. JP liked the older habit of bands naming themselves after songs by bands they loved, and when he started Tunnel Jumper in January 2024, he brought that idea back.
In December 2025, Frontierer vocalist Chad and drummer Luke followed Tunnel Jumper on Instagram. JP messaged Chad about a guest part. Chad turned it around quickly, giving JP a track with one of his biggest vocal influences.
“This song is about the crabs-in-a-bucket mentality; it’s about the people that are punching sideways instead of looking up–stop blaming people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, or whoever else they’ll convince you to hate. The real issues come from the concentration of corporate wealth & its political influence; they keep us fighting each other while they implement laws that serve the top instead of the common good. All of us are human beings that deserve respect and a safe place in this world. Regarding the feature — ‘Tunnel Jumper’ is actually the title of a song off the Frontierer album ‘Orange Mathematics’; a lot of bands I loved growing up were named after songs from their favorite bands which was a trend I always loved and wanted to bring back. Started the band back in January 2024 and fast forward to December 2025 — I get a notification that Chad & Luke (vocalist & drummer) from Frontierer followed our page on IG, which was surreal to say the least. I hit up Chad to ask about a feature to really bring the project full circle, he was stoked, and turned this around super quick. So now I’ll always have this awesome keepsake of a track of ours with one of my biggest vocal influences on it; I’m very grateful for how this one turned out.”
“The Rubicon” takes its title from crossing a point of no return. JP puts overfishing, ocean pollution, hyper-industrialised agriculture, weak sustainability laws and AI data centres in the same argument about consumption and long-term environmental damage.
“‘Crossing the Rubicon’ is a phrase that means passing beyond the point of no return; the science is clear — mankind’s current environmental trajectory is unsustainable and requires meaningful changes to fix it. Overfishing & pollution in the ocean, hyper industrialization of agriculture, inadequate sustainability laws, and now AI data centers — our species has always prioritized greed & consumption rather than looking to understand the larger impacts and potential ways to be sustainable.”
JP also points to David Attenborough’s warning, “Our blind assault on the planet has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world”, along with his warning about humanity continuing to consume the Earth until it is used up. Set Your Goals’ “Gaia Bleeds” gets a nod here too.
“Slow Focus (Interlude)” changes the pace. JP is an album listener, and he wanted a break from hardcore running flat-out for 26 minutes. Adam starts with a hybrid boom-bap and hardcore hi-hat beat. Guitar and bass resonances meet textured sounds from Justin’s Moog Grandmother, and the compression is pushed hard enough to give the track the blown-out-speaker effect JP wanted.
“Hardcore music is all-gas-no-breaks which I love, but when listening through an album, it can get a little fatiguing. As an album lover, I wanted an interlude to break up the album a bit, and also have a track where we could color outside the lines. This one ended up being a mash-up of stuff outside of hardcore that I was into at the time.”
The final piece was a sample from the film adaptation of “1984”. The scene asks how one person exerts power over another, talks about tearing human minds apart and remaking them, and ends with the image of a boot stamping on a human face forever. JP keeps one sentence at the centre of it: “Power is not a means, it is an end.”
“Whether we’re talking about MAGA, politics, corporate power, healthcare-for-profit, AI, or just shitty humans in general–it all comes back to who holds power, how it’s used, and who gets crushed underneath it.”
“Sucker Punch” feat. Hostages brings that question into art and the algorithm. JP writes about hobbies and creative work becoming content, the pressure to “blow up online”, and the way people start copying whatever has already been rewarded by the feed.
“There’s too much focus on clout & likes nowadays, and this era of algorithmic social media is obviously to blame. The trick we missed was being convinced that the things we enjoy like hobbies, art, lifestyle, etc. should be captured & monetized. Historically, hobbies and art were how you spent time because it was enjoyable–nothing at stake; just you, your brain, and time well spent scratching that brain itch you had. Now, there is all of this pressure to ‘blow up online’, and with that exposure comes the online peanut gallery that is constantly judging what works, and what doesn’t. I think that loop has homogenized a lot of art — something pops off, others emulate it hoping to catch the same wave, and then worry about straying too far from that perceived formula. Take big swings–don’t be afraid to have a unique take that feels it could only come from you. In my opinion, you should always be able to look back and be proud of your work, and that comes from work that is personal and feels unique to you. ‘Only painted blood will not fade’.”
The Hostages connection is family. JP’s brother and best friend Eric lives in Chicago and plays in the band, and JP says Eric has shaped his music and writing since they were kids. Once Tunnel Jumper started, he hoped they would eventually have a song that fit Hostages vocalist Tyler. “Sucker Punch” became that song.
“Once I started up this band, I’d always hoped to find a track that felt like a great fit for their vocalist Tyler, and after we wrote the instrumentals, we knew this would be a good fit. His part hits so hard and it’s collectively one of our favorite tracks to play as a result. Tyler is one of the most talented vocalists I know; his range is incredible — make sure to check out all of his work in Hostages & Chewinggla$$. He’s also now in DemsFightinWords and is on their latest single.”
“Hydra” goes back to corporate money, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, lobbying and politicians. JP uses the hydra for a cycle in which one representative disappears and another takes the same place.
“This song is about endless greed, corporate power, and their role in the problems in our country. Wall Street & Silicon Valley line the pockets of politicians in exchange for laws that benefit the 1% instead of the 99%. We keep voting for ‘representatives of the people’, while corporate money & lobbyists ensure those representatives prioritize wealth instead. So we vote them out, but the next is just as bad if not worse; cut the head off a hydra and 2 grow in its place.”
“Snake Around A Scepter” comes from JP’s family’s experience with the US healthcare system. He sees a system built around profit and points to a 2024 HealthCare.gov figure of around 85 million in-network claims denied, roughly one in five. JP also talks about patients having to fight for coverage and the medical debt that can follow when insurers refuse it.
“Several years back, my wife was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder called Stiff Persons Syndrome. Since then, we have had a lot of personal experience with the frustrations of navigating the US health insurance system and the mental/financial stress that comes along with it.”
JP wanted “Noseblunt Shuvit” to be the most aggressive song on the record, and that choice guided both the instrumentals and the lyrics. He wrote it about the consequences people born roughly after 1990 inherited from decades of economic and political decisions, with Reaganomics and Silicon Valley monopolisation among the examples he names.
“This one is about the shit hand that everyone born post-1990ish has been dealt–decades of greedy decisions made far before we had any say. From Reaganomics to allowing Silicon Valley to monopolize, money & power have been prioritized over the common good for too long. The younger generations have been left to suffer the consequences, with a narrow path for us to stablish sustainable environmental, economic, societal, and political policies. It’s our throne now; we have to figure out how to get back on track.”
Colorado has been in the record from the start. “5280” brings in Back Lip, “Chewing Bullets” brings in Playn’ For Keeps, and JP calls the album Rocky Mountain Hardcore. When we asked Tunnel Jumper what else from their state should be in the conversation, they gave us nine bands, including close friends, bands they have only recently met, and a couple they still have not played with.
“The CO scene has really been on a tear lately and is worth a deep-dive,” they told us. So here is their full list, in their own words.
Playn’ For Keeps
“When we started up this band, P4K was one of the first to book a show with us and we’ve been homies ever since. Their riffs crush, their guitar & bass tones are gnarly, Chris beats the shit out of his kit while yelling to hype up the crowd, and John is an absolute presence on-stage. Anti-facist hardcore kings.”
Hammerhead
“Shares a lot of the same members as P4K; we met Joey their guitarist at show in FoCo back in February. He mentioned spinning up a new project, and they blew the doors off as they’ve dropped singles through this year. Joey also started up an online zine called Beat Session that promotes hardcore, and specifically focuses on spotlighting the CO hardcore scene; huge shout out to the Hammerhead guys & Beat Session.”
Tightspot
“More homies; these guys dropped their EP back in July and have been first out of so many mouths when asked ‘who’ve you been listening to lately?’. Super awesome group of guys that are very big proponents of the local scene. We just played with them last week and can’t wait to get on more bills with them.”
Bangalore
“We first got to play with Banglore when we both opened up for Sheer Terror late last year. Matt (founder of the band) built this project to be for veterans, and everyone in the band has served (thank you guys for your service). I’m paraphrasing some of what Matt has shared during their sets, and I hope I’m doing this justice — he has shared that he founded the band to build more community for veterans, as post-service life can be very challenging. Having a group that can directly relate and support each other is very important, and it sounds like it has been very helpful for the band & their community. To boot, they fittingly dropped a rager of an EP right on the 4th of July.”
Hard to Kill
“We first linked up with H2K when we opened up for Chain Gang & Knuckle Sandwich; hit it off with them right away and are playing with them again on 9/4 when our album drops. Incredibly nice dudes with pummeling riffs and gnarly vocals.”
Back Lip
“Evan is a homie and the frontman of Back Lip, and is featured on our track 5280; I’ve been a fan of Back Lip since I first dove into the CO hardcore scene. They’re fucking sick; no way around it. Additionally, Evan has a promotion/booking company called 719 Violence that puts on shows in CO Springs and Denver, and is friends with just about everyone. For good reason too; he does a ton for the scene via 719 and always puts on the sickest shows.”
Eyes of Salt
“We haven’t had a chance to link up with the EOS guys yet, but they dropped an awesome EP back in 2024 and then followed it up with an absolute slam-dunk-of-an-album this year called ‘Collapse of the Infinite’. Just really well written politically-charged hardcore; give them some plays.”
Moral Law
“Another band we haven’t played with, but ML is a vegan-straight-edge band from Denver with an awesome metallic sound. The room goes off whenever they play here. They are about to go tour Europe opening for Earth Crisis, so if you haven’t heard of them yet, you will soon I’m sure.”
Time X Heist
“We haven’t crossed paths with them much personally, but they’ve been a big part of the Denver straight-edge scene for a while now. They released a new album back in May through Indecision Records that brings more of the classic HXC sound to CO, and I think variety is important in any local scene.”
“Half Gone” is out September 4 through Mean World Records. Tunnel Jumper play with Hard to Kill again the same day.
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