Aalborg hardcore crew Hard Lessons come in heavy, with plenty of NYHC swing underneath the damage. There’s a bit of Inclination, Pain of Truth, Gridiron and XweaponX in the DNA, but their new EP Influx of Betrayal pushes the whole thing further with six tracks and a guest vocalist on every one of them. None of those spots were thrown in just for the name either. Each voice has its own role in the song. And technically, there’s one more: a seventh cameo was recorded on the fly at Pitfest in the Netherlands and snuck into the intro, with the identity still being kept under wraps.
Short but packed, Influx of Betrayal gets a lot of mileage out of those guest spots, giving the record a nice shift in mood from track to track. It all stays heavy, but the pace keeps moving around enough to stop it from becoming one-note, and there are more than a few moments made for clenched fists and flying bodies. Proper hardcore punishment, basically.
With six guests across six songs, it could have easily turned into a roll call. T, the band’s singer and songwriter, approached it much more deliberately. He went song by song, listening for delivery, rasp, weight and flow, then worked out who could push each track where it needed to go. One of those choices was Danish rapper Peter, aka 4Pro of Skudsalve, who writes his whole section in Danish. Another song was basically built to leave Daan of Becoming A.D. enough room to sound like Daan.
The idea had been kicking around partly because Hard Lessons had heard Pain of Truth bring multiple guest vocalists onto a record. They already had plenty of people around them through hardcore. Anger X Rage Booking had connections with Merauder, No Grave and LIES!, Odd Pace had crossed into their orbit through Northern Aggression, they knew people from Sharp Tongues, and 4Pro had been coming to Hard Lessons shows.
“Hardcore is the reason we met these people in the first place,” the band put it in their early notes for the EP.
Most of the guest parts were then recorded separately in home studios across several countries. It is a very DIY way of making a record that now comes out through a US label, but the actual process stayed scattered between the people involved.
T starts “Deadweight” with René of Dutch band LIES! in mind.
“The reason for choosing René for the track is simply because I’ve listened to Lies! for a hot minute now. René is a very talented vocalist, not only his lyrics, but I’ve always admired his delivery both live and on the record – he goes HARD! Not only that – He’s also a very great person that I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know through music.”
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“First Blood” is where the record takes a bigger turn. Peter, aka 4Pro of Skudsalve, comes from rap, although his connection to hardcore runs much deeper than dropping a guest verse onto one EP. He knew the band personally, had been at their shows and, in their words, is “hardcore by heart and spirit.” T also brings bits of rap into his own vocal delivery live.
“First Blood” had already become one of the more difficult songs for T in terms of lyrics and flow, so he wanted somebody who could really handle that side of it.
“‘First Blood’ is one of the more complex songs to hit it off lyrically and flow-wise, so I knew I needed a guy that could nail it – Peter was that guy. The thing about ‘First Blood’ is that I told Peter specifically to write his part in Danish and he really hit it home.”
Peter was immediately up for it. His section changed the flow of the track and gave Hard Lessons something they had wanted to bring into Danish hardcore for a while.
Rap has never been some new discovery for them. The band hear plenty of shared ground between hardcore and rap in what they called “raw energy, attitude, brotherhood and community.” They wanted to bring that into their own scene because they already listen to it and T already uses some of that phrasing onstage. Peter simply gave them the right person to push it further.
Whether rap sticks around on the next Hard Lessons record is still open. They are already writing new songs and have not decided what shape that record will take. Another rap part is entirely possible.
“Gangrene” gets Aaron from No Grave and CastxDown in the US. T listens to No Grave a lot and had a simple reason for putting Aaron here.
“For me Aaron’s vocals are just straight up brutal and hardhitting. ‘Gangrene’ is the heaviest track on ‘Influx of Betrayal’, so to put Aaron on the track was a no-brainer.”
For “Parasitic“, T wanted a lighter, raspy hardcore voice. He sees it as the most straightforward hardcore song on the EP, and Carl-Magnus of Swedish band Sharp Tongues fitted that part almost exactly.
“I really love a light, raspy hardcore-vocal sound. Carl matches up perfectly with that description. He sounds amazing. He’s done an amazing job with the track.”
Carl’s appearance ended up being one of the contributions the band singled out afterwards. His lighter voice pulls some hardcore punk into a record with plenty of heavier weight around it.
T had only started listening to German band Odd Pace shortly before Hard Lessons played with them. Toni’s voice stuck immediately, especially the pain in his delivery, so he ended up on “Ringworm.”
“There is just something agonizing and painful in Toni’s voice, so I knew I needed that sound on ‘Ringworm’. He has delivered that pain and agony on the track and I love it.”
The plan for “Insufferable” went back even further. T already knew he wanted Daan of Belgium’s Becoming A.D. involved before the band had written the record. This time the process worked backwards from the vocalist they wanted. They wrote a song where Daan could move comfortably and leave some of his own band’s character on it.
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“I’m a huge fan of Becoming A.D. and Daan is just an amazing lyricist and vocalist.
He has such an amazing voice so for us, it was about writing a song where Daan could fit right in. Where he would have room for his creativity and give it that ‘Becoming A.D. touch’. He nailed it completely. This is definitely one of my favorite track off of ‘Influx of Betrayal’.”
Those six parts already made the EP crowded. Hard Lessons still ended up with one more voice.
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During their June run with Merauder, somebody joined them at Pitfest and recorded an intro on the spot. The band will only say that he is a friend and “a big figure in the scene.” The recording had not been planned. They kept it, and his identity stays under wraps for now.
That same three-show weekender also pushed Hard Lessons much closer to the people behind Kingside Records.
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The run took Hard Lessons and Merauder through Germany, Luxembourg and Pitfest in the Netherlands. Hard Lessons obviously knew who Merauder were long before that. Their working connection mainly ran through Carsten Brogaard of Anger X Rage Booking, who handles Hard Lessons and is also Merauder’s European agent.
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Then they actually spent three days together. They drove between shows, ate together, helped with setup and merch, told stories and took the piss out of each other.
“We just bro’d it out.”
At the same time, Gabe, who runs Kingside Records with Jorge, had been playing Hard Lessons’ 2025 debut full-length “This Ain’t No Game” over and over. The first conversations with the Merauder-owned US label had actually started before the weekender.
For Hard Lessons, signing with Kingside came down to being seen after putting the work in.
“For us, signing with Kingside means recognition. Someone heard what we were doing, saw the work we were putting in, and believed there was something worth investing in. That’s a huge deal for a band like us.”
“Influx of Betrayal” was released through Kingside on September 5 after singles in July and August. It is available digitally, on CD and on 7-inch vinyl, and a cassette has also been discussed. Kim Fenger, Hard Lessons’ guitarist and songwriter, produced, mixed and mastered the record at his own Lessons Learned Studio.
Kim plays guitar, Casper handles bass and T fronts the band, with all three involved in songwriting. Casper also runs video production operation Pitfootage, while T has his own digital label, Naysayer Records.
Hard Lessons have already played with Agnostic Front, Merauder, Ignite, Pro-Pain, Risk It! and Filth, and have appeared at Copenhell, Aalborg Metal Festival and Pitfest. Their shows are built around stagedives, singalongs and moshpits, which is a pretty direct fit for a band putting this much weight behind the groove.
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The title “Influx of Betrayal” takes the record somewhere much more personal. T wrote about other people letting you down and the ways a person can turn on themselves.
“‘Influx of Betrayal’ is actually about the betrayals we face from others in our lives, but it’s also about how you as a human being betray yourself. It’s been a tough process of writing the lyrics, because it’s been about accepting who I am and coming to terms with my flaws as a person.”
That sits underneath an EP which, from the outside, has plenty going on around it. Six features. A rapper. An American label. A Merauder connection. For T, the words themselves came out of a much more private process.
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Hard Lessons are doing all of this from Aalborg, which gives them a slightly different position inside Danish hardcore.
The wider Danish scene has plenty moving right now. Real Impact, Mite, S.T.A.B., Earn Your Scars, Split, Rot Away, Lifesick, Decade, Tackle, Bitter and Pure Trauma are active, while Barcode are back.
Larger venues and metal festivals have also been opening more space to hardcore. Anger X Rage, Kæmpe Moshpit Bookings, V.O.L.D. and Esbjerg Hardcore Crew are among the promoters keeping shows moving.
The band still point back to the 2000s as a high point, especially Fredericia and Fredericia Hardcore Festival. A lot disappeared after that period. Since COVID, they have watched another generation come through and start filling the gaps.
Aalborg remains smaller mainly because of geography and population. Hard Lessons and Pure Trauma are the main hardcore names they point to locally, with Omsorg and Koya covering post-hardcore, screamo and heavier territory around them. For a band from Aalborg, staying visible means travelling, playing and keeping people talking.
Hard Lessons admit they sometimes feel overlooked or left outside the conversation when bookers and other people in the scene are deciding which bands count as contenders. Kim and Casper did not turn that into a grievance when asked for examples.
“It’s always hard to make a name for yourself and there are so many great bands out there, that are really hungry. We all have dreams and want to play certain things, you know? Everyone’s time will come if you put in the work.”
T’s version was more direct. They are still fighting for their place, they know they can move a crowd, and they are staying put.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
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Anger X Rage has also been trying to bring more hardcore into northern Denmark directly. Carsten started Northern Aggression in 2026 as a small festival with an intimate room, hardcore and adjacent bands, and very little distance between band and audience.
The wider 9Keys HC Crew helps as a sparring and promotional unit around it. That crew links Anger X Rage, LegionShop.dk, Hard Lessons, Casper’s Pitfootage and T’s Naysayer Records. Hard Lessons played the first edition and could end up as a loose kind of house band if that continues, although nobody has fixed that idea yet. Carsten is already working on a 2027 edition.
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Kim and Casper keep their own reason for doing the band simple.
“For us, it’s never been about fame and fortune. For us, it’s been about meeting new people, meeting great bands and have a great time and that people have a great time at our shows. The world is ugly enough, we want to make our shows an outlet, a place to have fun and forget about the day to day worries.”
That is also what sits behind the constant talk of friendship and brotherhood around “Influx of Betrayal.” In practical terms, it means people showing up at each other’s shows, sharing bills, recording parts from different countries, helping with merch and setup on tour, running festivals and keeping small operations like Pitfootage, Naysayer Records, LegionShop.dk and Anger X Rage moving around the same group of people.
Kingside are now handling the physical side of “Influx of Betrayal“. Anger X Rage are already working on more bookings for 2027. Hard Lessons themselves are writing again.
Their sound is still moving somewhere between that NYHC groove, modern hardcore weight and the bands they already put close to themselves, Inclination, Pain of Truth, GridIron and XweaponX. After six guests and one secret voice, they have not decided who turns up on the next record yet. Maybe another rapper will.
