Blending modern hardcore with older 90s/early 2000s influences of Strife, Go It Alone, Carry On, American Nightmare, and Reach the Sky, the second LP from Florida hardcore band BURNING STRONG, Here Until The End (From Within Records), sees the band playing as fast as they can, with singable guitar parts, metallic breaks, and anthemic lyrics to tie it all together. A lot of their new tracks are about their love for hardcore and their love for how it connects them to their friends and builds a community within the music scene.
“When bands write early demos, they do it to try and mimic other bands they love.” – comments the band. “We did that at first too – drawing influence from Strife, Go It Alone, Reach the Sky, Count Me Out, and American Nightmare but over time as our band has evolved, I feel like we have grown into our own sound.” … and they couldn’t be more right. The album blends their eclectic inspirations and builds around a positive message that grows into perhaps one of the most striking, emotional, yet hard hitting offering in the genre this year.
“Florida’s straight-edge scene has been steady gaining stock over recent years. This Pensacola hardcore combo displays raging, metallic guitar riffs with wide, dynamic arrangements guaranteed to keep you engaged from the first track to the last. For fans of Magnitude, Envision, Ecostrike, and straight edge.” – Revelation Records
Asked about the meaning of their songs, Burning Strong shared the following: “The Torch, Nowhere Else, and Unchained are all songs specifically related to our devotion to hardcore and bonding together through it. We have had some tough times in the scene, watching it fall apart several times, but by staying strong to the scene and starting new bands we have found ways to persevere and keep it all going. We’ve led the way for several renditions of the scene back to 2010 because there is truly nowhere else we’d rather be. Now a dozen years later, we’re still here and will be until the end.”
The middle of the album features songs about inner conflict and other various struggles we all deal with as we grow older.
“Fortunate Ones is about learning to appreciate life as it is rather than thinking about all the what-ifs and the curse of always wanting more.” – continues the band. “Insight is about trying to find clarity when you’re feeling empty and struggling to find purpose in life.”
Expounding a bit more on their local independent music community, Burning Strong admit that the Pensacola scene for a few years was in a pretty dark place.
“The only venue that we had for shows in general was The Handlebar which was this super smoky, grungy dive bar.” – says the band.
“At the heart of it was the fact that it was the only place in town that embraced local music, particularly in the punk/hardcore scene. It lost its luster over time as people began to feel unsafe or uncomfortable at the venue with all the shady characters and cigarettes. The bar closed in 2018, we found a few places to do things temporarily including a smoothie bar, American Legion, art gallery, and a DIY space that I opened, but it never really felt like a permanent solution.”
Since then we have worked hard to reopen The Handlebar and keep everything we loved and throw away everything we hated and it has really opened the door for our music scene to give local bands and touring bands a place to play again. It’s always been the perfect spot between Texas/Louisiana and South FL/Atlanta and it never made sense why people saw it as a drive-through town. As of right now the scene is flourishing and we’d love for more bands to purposefully choose to try and play here with all of our amazing locals.”
To wrap it up, we asked the boys to give us their their quick playlist of songs that served as their infuences and got them into hardcore early on. Here’s what we’ve got.
