On “Where Is My Lucky Star?”, No One Leaves tell the story of someone who’s spent years busting his ass for something that still seems nowhere in sight. The narrator keeps putting in the hours, knowing the whole thing could fail, and starts wondering how much of his life he’s wasting.
The frustration runs through several songs on “Splitting“, the new five-track EP from Gdańsk’s No One Leaves, whose beatdown hardcore pulls in metalcore, mathcore and sludge. There’s anger at the demands other people make, exhaustion from trying to meet them, and an occasional stubborn refusal to give up.
Four of those songs have been available since May. No One Leaves kept the title track, written by guitarist Piotr “Knorr” Fic, aside for the complete EP’s November release. Today, we’re giving “Splitting” its exclusive first airing on IDIOTEQ, ahead of the full five-song release on 16 November.
Behind the new record is a band that handles its own recordings, runs a studio and manufactures its cassette releases by hand. Drummer Maciej “Prastary” Partyka has spent the past few years learning recording techniques and building up NXL Records, while bassist Bartosz “Elban” Lubanski has taken charge of turning the music into something physical. Their latest edition runs to just twenty cassettes.
First, here’s the new track.
No One Leaves formed in Gdańsk in 2022 and released their first EP, “Despine“, in June 2024, followed by the standalone “Beatdown Bells” in December 2025. Their gigs lean into the more physical end of hardcore, with aggressive mosh pits and a taste for heavy, metallic breakdowns. The new material comes from the same world, though the writing also carries some fairly miserable observations about everyday life.
“A Life’s Edge“, composed by Piotr with lyrics written alongside vocalist Pierre Duyker, takes aim at the pressure to accept the life other people have laid out for you. Its words move between social judgement, false comforts and a direct refusal to let somebody else dictate what you’re supposed to live for. The narrator talks about tearing through the seams of a sheltered existence and doing damage to everything it holds dear.
Maciej wrote “Perseweracja” in Polish. It begins with sleeplessness and a body being pushed forward almost mechanically, like a stone rolling downhill. The anger keeps growing, but the words also make room for people standing together and helping one another carry on. By the end, the narrator’s arms are getting weaker with every blow, whether given or received. He’s worn out and still determined to try once more.
The lyrics of “Where Is My Lucky Star?“, another collaboration between Piotr and Pierre, are more openly bitter about work, ambition and the promises people make to themselves. The song keeps returning to effort that goes unrewarded and the days slipping away in pursuit of a cause that may never amount to anything. Its narrator even mocks himself as somebody standing in a field, tending a failed crop and waiting for the locusts.
Those aren’t especially cheerful subjects, and No One Leaves have plenty of room for them in their hardcore. The five songs also carry several different writing credits. Frykas, the guitarist credited on the recording, composed “Open Season”, “Perseweracja” and “Where Is My Lucky Star?”, while Piotr wrote the music for “Splitting” and “A Life’s Edge”. Pierre wrote the words for “Open Season” and shares the lyrical credits on the two English-language songs discussed above. The title track’s lyrics are Piotr’s.
The band recorded “Splitting” at NXL Studio between 2024 and 2025. Maciej handled production and engineering, continuing the work he’d begun with “Despine”. The recording room itself had been taking shape since No One Leaves first got together.
“NXL Records was an idea that came about together with the band, on my initiative,” Maciej told us. “We wanted to have our own sound, and that usually only becomes clear during recording, with the actual equipment you’re using.”
Back then, NXL was based in Gdańsk’s Przeróbka district. Maciej collected microphones, learned how to record and gradually bought the equipment he needed. The rest of the band helped adapt the room acoustically and brought in their own gear. There were amplifiers, speakers, cabinets, effects and outboard equipment to sort out. Each addition gave them a few more options when it came to recording.
After the “Despine” sessions went well, Maciej put more money into the studio. He wanted to get past the limitations of a normal rehearsal space and have somewhere the band could work on the character of their recordings without having to hire an outside room every time.
The new EP gave them another chance to use that setup, but they decided to bring somebody else into the final stages. No One Leaves recorded themselves, then handed mixing and mastering to Paweł Malawski of Audioverse. Paweł knew Elban, and the band wanted somebody who could hear the songs without being tied to every choice they’d made while composing and tracking them.
“We’ve always recorded ourselves entirely,” Maciej said. “With ‘Splitting’, though, we wanted a fresh ear to finish the process.”
Paweł worked with the band on the overall sound and brought in production ideas of his own. He also helped shape the samples and other opening passages of “Open Season”, the first track on the EP. That work involved decisions about the arrangement itself, giving him a hand in how the record begins.
Earlier mixing and mastering work had involved sending material back and forth remotely. This time the musicians went to Paweł’s studio and worked with him in person. They could listen, talk and make adjustments together, which Maciej found much more enjoyable.
“There was no internet ping-pong, just talking and exchanging ideas in person. For us, it was a wonderful adventure.”
By May 2026, the band were dealing with a different problem. Circumstances at the Przeróbka location had become unfavourable, so they moved NXL Records to Pruszcz Gdański, a town just outside Gdańsk. They already knew what had worked in the first studio and what they wanted to improve.
The new place was designed from scratch, with better acoustic treatment and further investment in equipment. Maciej and the others did the adaptation work together, as they had in Przeróbka. Maciej had also developed an interest in building guitar cabinets and ended up making one himself. It has since become his favourite cabinet for guitar sounds in the studio.
There’s plenty of gear in NXL now, but Maciej is still adding to it and looking for things he can make himself. The room also has a growing life outside No One Leaves. At the time of our conversation, they were working on three recording projects for friends from the local metal scene. The studio that started out as a way of recording their own hardcore has begun taking on other bands from the area.
Elsewhere in the group, Elban has been spending his time on a very different kind of equipment. He’s a longtime collector of physical releases and other memorabilia from metal and related scenes, and he’s especially fond of obscure formats and objects you can actually keep. That interest led to the band’s small-run cassette editions.
For “Despine”, he made fifteen tapes, working through the whole process himself. He designed the layout and the photograph inside, prepared the artwork for printing, made the stickers, selected the colours, printed and cut everything, assembled the packaging and recorded the music onto the cassettes. The edition included black, white and red tapes.
No One Leaves went through that process without a label, manufacturer or other middleman. Elban handled everything from the computer files to the finished tape.
“Splitting” follows the same approach with a slightly bigger run. Twenty copies have been manufactured in black, white, red and transparent versions. Most were already spoken for during the pre-order period. The band kept a few copies for themselves, with the remaining tapes offered through their merch channels and at gigs.
The EP’s cover was designed by Frykas, while Elban handled the cassette layout and photography. The artwork has a skull against a rough red-and-black background, with the cassette’s design carrying the same distressed look. Each tape is a small physical edition of the record that the band have put together themselves.
Elban is already thinking about how to tackle CDs. He’s been looking into printing graphics directly onto discs at home and preparing inserts sized for jewel cases. There isn’t a confirmed CD edition of “Splitting” yet, but he’s working through how to make one without sending the job to a manufacturer.
The band’s current line-up has Piotr and Dariusz Sonderj on guitars, with Maciej on drums, Elban on bass and Pierre handling lead vocals. Pierre also shoots video for No One Leaves. Alongside the recording and manufacturing work, they continue playing live, including an appearance at the Wszystko Pracuje Sprawnie hardcore festival in Bydgoszcz on 7 November.
The new songs have already been moving around for several months, and the cassette edition has found its way into people’s hands. Now the last track is getting its turn. “Splitting” completes the five-song EP, with No One Leaves keeping control of the recording and the physical release while bringing Paweł in to help finish the sound.
No One Leaves release the complete “Splitting” EP on 16 November 2026. The twenty-copy DIY cassette edition comes in four colours, with the remaining copies available through the band’s Bandcamp and at their shows while stocks last. Their earlier material can also be heard on Spotify, and the band’s concert profile has further links. For anybody picking up one of the twenty tapes, Elban has already done the printing, cutting, assembly and recording himself.
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