Before there was a plan for a release, there was just a house outside Boston where four people lived, worked, and slowly stopped separating music from everything else. The studio went into the basement. Video gear stayed upstairs. Songs got written between meals and other people’s deadlines. “Ignoring The Stain” came out of that setup, and it still sounds like it belongs there.
Cranked aren’t new to this. Everyone involved spent years moving through metal and hardcore bands across the American Northeast – Move, Wisdom and War, Blood Tithe – long enough to know how expectations settle in. At the same time, the work around the bands kept growing. Charlie Abend producing records out of the house. Ryan Flynn directing music videos for local and touring acts. Jake Solomon and Jake Maclean handling cameras, editing, figuring things out on sets where there was no room for mistakes. Different projects, same circle.
About three years ago, they ended up living together. The studio followed. Cranked took shape slowly, not as a reaction against their other bands, but as a place where they didn’t have to play the roles they’d already learned too well. It was built around curiosity and a shared sense that they wanted to write toward something that felt closer to the truth.
“Ignoring The Stain” is the first song they’ve put out, arriving yesterday with a self-produced video premiering today. Out of three tracks planned for release in the first half of 2026, this one sits at an angle to the rest of their scene. Clean, almost restrained verses sit next to a chorus that’s heavy and easy to grab onto.
The song took time to arrive in this form. Versions were scrapped. Parts were rewritten until they stopped competing with each other. It’s not trying to hide its shifts or smooth them out. If anything, the tension between styles is the point. The band’s heavier material is still coming, but leading with this track is a way of saying they’re not interested in being read too quickly.
Lyrically, the song pulls from a specific place: growing up in a home defined by instability, people constantly moving in and out, anger forming early in an environment that never settled. There’s nothing abstract about it, and it doesn’t lean on metaphor to soften the edges. That history sits underneath the song without being dressed up.
“When we were young, fitting into our scene meant writing the heaviest stuff we could – showing up and proving we belonged.” That period mattered, but it isn’t where they’re stuck. “We’ve been doing this for long enough now that our goals have shifted.” The urgency to prove something has been replaced by a quieter confidence. “We’re not a mosh band, we don’t chase the biggest breakdowns,” and while early 2000s rock, grunge, and nu metal shaped how they listen, there’s no interest in copying those sounds just to signal familiarity.
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Living together changed the rhythm of how things get made. Music is part of daily conversation – over breakfast, over dinner – less about naming influences and more about asking why certain bands still hold up decades later, and why so many attempts to imitate them feel hollow. “Many of those bands made bold decisions in defining their style,” and trying to work with that level of intent isn’t comfortable. It takes time, repetition, and a willingness to sit with ideas that don’t land right away.
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Doing everything themselves removed the usual safety nets. “DIY means you can’t rely on someone else’s tools to buff out your mistakes, or a good-enough standard to meet and pack it in.” Over two dozen demos were thrown out. Nothing stayed because it was unusual. Flaws weren’t reframed as character – they were rewritten until they became something the band could stand behind.
The video follows the same approach. It was shot entirely inside the house, using what was already there. An empty room. Morning light through the blinds. Camera tricks to make it look full even when someone had to stay behind the lens. Early alarms. A vocalist running on three hours of sleep. No outside budget, no borrowed aesthetics, just the space that’s been carrying the project from the start.
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“Ignoring The Stain” was written, recorded, and mixed by Cranked at Tower Farm Studios, their in-house setup. The video was filmed by the band, and the artwork produced internally. Mastering was handled by Mike Kalajian at Rogue Planet Mastering.
