The new single from CAGED VIEW is the spark that sets their entire debut EP on fire. “New Fuel For An Old Fire,” is as much a battle cry as it is a thesis statement for the Bay Area band’s 8-song release, set to drop April 25 via GGT Records.
Short, sharp, and furious, the track fuses jagged post-hardcore with metallic textures and lyrical defiance. “No, I don’t believe that lives lost are worth the power gained,” vocalist Pat Piccolo screams, tapping into a rage that feels both personal and historic.
This urgency isn’t accidental. Guitarist and main songwriter Duane Harris—known from ALLEGIANCE and SOME STILL BELIEVE—explains that the band took shape during the pandemic when he and drummer Joey Raygoza (KING WOMAN, LIES, CRUCIFIED) began jamming. But the vision had been burning in him long before that.
All photos by @xofinn
“I wanted to do something that was rooted in straight-up hardcore, but leaned into post-hardcore, melodic punk, and even metal,” he says. Once they added guitarist Ross Trenary and bassist Mike Quirk (both ex-ALLEGIANCE), and Piccolo (EMBRACE THE END, BENEATH THE ASHES) on vocals, the lineup locked into place.
The band’s 2022 demo—released by Leroy Thomas of NEW KNEE RECORDS—was raw and fast, a proof-of-concept more than a polished product. Now, after two years of shows and growth, they’re ready with a record that’s been shaped by both collaboration and challenge. Harris credits Raygoza pushing his songwriting: “The way he plays drums is like having another guitarist in the band.”
Recorded at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland with Scott Evans (KOWLOON WALLED CITY), New Fuel For An Old Fire is rooted in punk, but refuses to stay boxed in. The EP swings between the blistering hardcore of “Fact Checking In the Age of Conspiracy,” the atmospheric heaviness of “Compassion Fatigue,” and the 90s emo shadows in “Time Blind.” But this isn’t genre play—it’s a document of the world around them. As Piccolo puts it, “It’s not necessarily deep or complex… but we deliberately did not get stuck on themes or styles or sounds.”
Lyrically, the record hits like a foghorn in the middle of a storm. It’s messy, real, and deliberate. From the media whiplash in “Compassion Fatigue” to the quiet pain of failed systems in “Highest Standard of Living,” these songs reflect a band rooted in their surroundings, both musically and visually. The cover art, created by Harris and his partner Steph Gray using photographs of decaying infrastructure in Oakland, doubles as a visual translation of the record’s tone—utilitarian but alive, brutal yet hopeful. “It’s stark and real,” says Piccolo, “but not void of life.”
The singles drop April 4 and 14, with the full record hitting on April 25—coincidentally the same day as the ALLEGIANCE “reunion” show at Gilman. Their release show is locked for May 10 at Tamarack in Oakland with NO LIGHTS, EX EVERYTHING, and MINUS NUMBERS, promising what Harris calls a “post-hardcore extravaganza.”
The band is also planning a Pacific Northwest run with NO LIGHTS later this year.
When asked about the broader message of the EP, Piccolo doesn’t offer a manifesto—he offers a feeling. “It feels more urgent and direct,” he says. “It acts like a snapshot of everything we’ve felt compelled to express as a band.”
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And their local scene reflects that same pulse. Harris shouts out brother band NO LIGHTS, as well as EX EVERYTHING, MINUS NUMBERS, and speed-driven hardcore like URBAN SPRAWL, GREYHOUND, BIG, and DISCOURAGE. His other band MALINFORMANTS is also in the mix (chek out our recetn feature about the band at this location).
Piccolo highlights CLIQUE for their crushing slow-core political edge, and gives props to scene legends POWERHOUSE and SECOND COMING, alongside acts like KOWLOON WALLED CITY and KING WOMAN.
Be sure to give a listen to these bands and follow them on Bandcamp:
CAGED VIEW marks a convergence—of past bands, old friendships, sharpened ideas, and honest reflection. It’s post-hardcore without the polish, punk without the costume. It’s the sound of surviving late-stage America with your eyes open and your fists clenched.
New Fuel For An Old Fire is raw, loud, and dead honest—less about one single message and more about the restless, emotional weight of living in the now. It’s urgent, frustrated, and human. From chaotic political climates to personal losses, from decaying systems to flickers of hope, the record pulls from everything that’s been sitting heavy in the band’s gut.
Below, you’ll find a full track-by-track breakdown from vocalist Pat Piccolo, shared exclusively for IDIOTEQ.
Compassion Fatigue:
We exist in a world where we are constantly inundated with some of the most horrific violence and suffering imaginable. We see it in our streets where it is often ignored and stepped over, and we view it through our devices where it is mixed with mindless humor or mundane and meaningless fluff. It all leads us down a whiplashed and confused consumption drain of world events, algorithms, and adrenal fatigue. Our over-informed and over-stimulated minds leave us in a state of overwhelm, defeat and apathy. Even when we can muster the justifiable emotion, it can feel like any action leads to burnout and complacency. I want to feel feelings, and be moved to act and be alive. I want more, for me and the world.
New Fuel For An Old Fire:
This is the title track of the EP and the general tone of the record/ living in America in 2025. This is a simplistic reaction to current events as part of a larger, repeating historical pattern. A reaction to violence perpetrated upon marginal populations by powerholders/ imperialist/ theocratic ethno-states (take your pick) who somehow still claim victimhood or righteous defender of freedom, or both (read United States funded state of israel committing genocide on the Palistinians). Often, we are both complicit and victims. A reaction to institutions of power, gaslighting you and me, using fear and guilt at best, and physical violence and death worse, to perpetuate an intentional system of inequality, false sense of choice, scarcity, division, exploitation, and ecological destruction. A system which serves nothing but its own interests. Resist to exist, burn it down to live.
Lighting Out:
A narration of a repeating journey through a panic stricken momentary loss of impulse control. A loss that sends you spiraling over the line of self destruction, and into a place that then actually forces you to slow down and try and pick up the pieces. A repeating impulse to escape real or perceived constraints without any explanation or bandwidth for a goodbye. Also, public transit should be free, and no one should be murdered for fare evasion.
Time Blind:
The uneven perception of passing time, ratcheting through a human life cycle where your current self is somehow unrecognizable to your past self. It’s facing the inevitable end of life. Not feeling time progress in any consistent measure, only seeing it as a reaction to what has passed. An inability to see what’s important until it’s long in the past.
Survival Pending:
It’s my experience that we, as participants in punk and hardcore etc. tend to find a unique closeness with friends/community, but conversely experience much more loss and death. We live in the extreme. We flirt with the fringes of what is safe, and often pay a price for it. We search for communities, adventure, freedom and a path to something more, all of which involve risk. We seek healing and wellness in a sick world, and many just don’t find it. Rest easy Sara, Blake, Jennifer, Max and Sammy to name just a few.
Highest Standard of Living:
It is unacceptable that social mores and criminal laws limit people’s right to body autonomy in the form of abortion, safe and available contraception, and or reproductive education. It is unacceptable that these same people, who claim to value life and compassion, do nothing to help in what is the inevitable end result of unwanted, neglected, under-resourced, and or marginalized children and families. There’s no social safety net, just a churn of potential consumers and sources of cheap labor, struggling to survive. Those who fall short become completely disposable and are left to rot. The foster care system is inadequate, overwhelmed, misguided and totally underfunded and under valued. Adoption is not a holistic solution.
Speaking from personal experience as a foster and adoptive parent, it’s a situation where there is no winner. Someone is always losing; the kids themselves, the birth families, and even the only part involved with any agency, which is the adoptive family. There is a huge need but there is no heroism in it, just trauma and pain. It’s something that all those who passively pepper their judgments and opinions don’t want to understand, let alone participate in because their morality is performative. I hold us all to a higher standard of compassion and understanding.
Fact Checking In The Age of Conspiracy:
Simply tired of all the self congratulatory patriotism, false narratives, misdirection, AI generated bullshit, lazy regurgitation of culture war buzz words instead of thinking critically about the fact that most of us really all want the same things. No one would care about immigration or the gender identity of other people if we all had everything we needed. False scarcity keeps people insecure and divided. We all have more in common with each other than we do with the powerbroker billionaires cosplaying as social engineers and politicians.
Key To The City (Noir Still-Life):
A two verse memoir of cold foggy nights spent trackside trying to be alive and free, and the struggle to participate in the straight world, with all its insecurity and superficial benchmarks, by day. It can be a hard line to walk.
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