“What Sets Me Apart” opens the record — track one, front and center. That’s not an accident. Dylan, who handles vocals for Hindsight, wanted the band’s straight edge identity placed where nobody could miss it. “I also hate when straight edge bands beat around the bush and don’t write songs about being edge or try and ‘hide’ that aspect of the band,” he says.
“Yes I write about other things, but this is the main reason for the band’s existence. First song, front and center on the record, I say the words, no mistaking it after that.”
View this post on Instagram
“Some Things Never Change” is the debut LP from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania five-piece — ten songs in fifteen minutes, out now on Rebirth Records.
It was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Wallaby at the Down Under in Delaware back in August 2025. Hindsight is Dylan on vocals, Ben on bass, Eric and Ty on guitar, and Andrew on drums.
View this post on Instagram
The band’s path to this point has been loose and nonlinear. Dylan, Ty, and Ben had been talking about starting something together for roughly a year before anything actually happened, mostly because they couldn’t find a straight edge drummer who could play fast. When Takedown — Dylan’s label and show operation with Greg from the Mongoloids — got asked to do a Trail of Lies show that fell on Dylan’s birthday in 2024, he pushed the group chat. “I was like hey let’s just figure this out,” he says. They got a drummer named Will, wrote and recorded a demo in about a month, and dropped it the day of the show. Will quit right after.
From there, the lineup kept shifting. Paul from the Banner and Suburban Scum filled in on drums for a stretch. Andrew, who Dylan describes as “this awesome young kid,” joined full-time last spring. Eric came in on guitar after the first show — “he’s another close friend and I just wanted to be in a band with him … many will say I’m crazy for that but fuck it.” When it came time to write the LP, with Will already gone, Dylan asked Lennon from Scarab and Face the Pain to handle drum parts for the recording sessions. The band decided at last summer’s Rebirth Showcase that they had enough to make a full record rather than a 7″ or a split, and that was that.
The recording itself was, by Dylan’s own telling, uneventful. “Eric and I just banged out all the songs together, and Ben came for a bit each day and helped lay down some of the gang vocals. All in all, all I can really say is we just ate a lot of Chick Fil A and fucked around a bit but got it all done.” Two days, middle of the week, done.
The songs clock in short but carry weight. “The Apple Falls Far” is about living without his father — an alcoholic who was never around. Dylan says he’d never actually written about it before this band. “It’s not something I think about all the time because he’s literally never been there. But with this band it felt right to finally write something about it.”
“Wherever You Go” is the one Dylan calls a departure from his usual mode. “For being an edge band, we definitely are not positive by any stretch of the word,” he said at a recent show. “However, this is one song that I think could be described as that.” He wrote it about his friends — the people who drive most of what he does. He gives a specific shout to Andrew DiCamillo, who helped write one of the tracks on the record and was one of the people he had in mind when the lyrics came together. A few people have told him it’s their favorite on the LP, which he appreciates given how different it is from the rest of the record.
On what straight edge actually means to him, day to day, Dylan keeps it plain: “I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, etc. If I’m living in misery (which I usually am) I just live with it and move on.” He doesn’t attach a political stance to it, doesn’t make it a health thing. He eats like shit and enjoys it, does dumb shit, doesn’t care about the performative side. His reasons are personal — friends lost to drugs, a father who wasn’t there because of alcohol. “It just all sucks to me so I’m not going to do it.” He thinks a lot of people make edge corny by treating it as a slogan rather than a lived thing. For him, writing songs is how he processes it — venting, expressing, talking through problems. That’s the whole substance of it.
He also has one anecdote he clearly enjoys telling: “I was seeing a girl in the last year or two who asked me on a second date if I was abstinent and I was so confused about why the hell she was asking me that … until she told me she googled what straight edge meant from my Instagram bio.”
The influences are where you’d expect — American Nightmare, Count Me Out, Carry On — but Dylan says those are just the most obvious reference points. Ben told him that beyond Carry On, Stop and Think was a key influence on his bass writing. Dylan points to Reach the Sky as a big one for his own approach, and Floorpunch as a major touchstone for the attitude on edge. Collectively, the band leans hard into Boston hardcore, and it shows on certain tracks. In the van, things get broader — they were playing Forced Order for Andrew when he first joined, trying to explain how good they were, while up front Dylan and Eric were listening to Wet and Thrice. When asked about his influences, Eric’s response was: “Idk I’m bad at this.” Dylan’s read: “I think negativity is his biggest influence.”
On the state of the Northeast corridor, Dylan paints a detailed picture. New Jersey, he says, has been in an incredible run. Beyond Takedown, he names Ricky, Swank, Stomp Out, Avery, Cinco De Mayo, Maggie’s, Black Brn, and Williams Center as promoters and rooms keeping things moving. Shows happen multiple times a month. “I believe that everyone in the state, especially the younger kids, are incredibly spoiled thanks to it.” He gives particular credit to Salty’s Beach Bar and the team there — Swank especially, along with Jay, Greg, and himself — calling those shows the catalyst for the current era of hardcore in the state. The list of bands he wants to shout out is long: Negative Force, Heavy Hand, Never Again, Terminal, Who Remembers, Defy You, Bodylock, XL Bully, Bayway, Lucky You, Roseblood, Manik, Just Look Around. South Jersey has its own thing going too, driven by Dante from Verses of the Bleeding, with bands like Capillary and Disposed.
Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, meanwhile, have never really slowed down. Dylan credits Bob, Ben, Joe, and Drayden for consistently running shows at Lithuanian Hall, Upper Darby, Nikki Lopez, Cousin Danny’s, and Foto Club.
“The difference with Philly is I think it has always been awesome and consistent, even in times where interest may have gone down in hardcore and shows.”
This Is Hardcore still goes strong every year — Dylan hasn’t missed one since 2016. Bob’s Rebirth Showcase is something he calls new and exciting, with this year’s lineup being, in his words, unbelievable. He credits Ben from Hindsight (who also plays in the band) with helping bring out younger kids both in the city and the suburbs.
Philly bands to know: Scarab, the Big Hurt, Sucide Eyes, Swordpath, Joystick Fury, Flip the Switch, Fool’s Game, Wretched Rite, Down to the Wire, False Salvation, Dead on Your Feet, Demonstrate.
“Some Things Never Change” is out now on Rebirth Records. Hindsight is Dylan, Ben, Eric, Ty, and Andrew.
Also on Rebirth:
Start Today follow up their 2024 demo and 2025 self-titled 7″ with “Nothing To You,” their debut LP, out March 20 on Rebirth Records.
The record pulls from early 2000s LA hardcore — Carry On, Internal Affairs — and folds in original youth crew (Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today) alongside the mid-2000s Lockin’ Out stomp of Mental and Righteous Jams. Start Today is Angus on vocals, Tate on guitar, Yavi on guitar, Dave on bass, and Hudson on drums.
This April they head out with Terror, Pain of Truth, and End It, with another headlining tour following in the summer.
