Cleveland’s punk trio Heart Attack Man announced today that their fourth full-length album, Joyride The Pale Horse, will drop on April 25, 2025. The release comes with two new tracks—“Laughing Without Smiling” and “Spit”—available for streaming at this link.
Frontman Eric Egan explains the creative pressure behind the record: “With every song of ours that comes to life, I have a thought in the back of my mind that it could be the last good song we ever write. At the same time, in many ways it feels like we’re just getting started and have only just begun to tell our story. This album is the intersection of pessimism and optimism; firmly between life and death.”
View this post on Instagram
Since forming in 2014, Heart Attack Man—comprising Eric Egan (vocals, guitar), Adam Paduch (drums), and Ty Sickels (guitar)—has honed a sound marked by palm-muted pop-punk chords and incisive lyrics.
Their discography, including releases like Acid Rain EP, The Manson Family, Fake Blood, Thoughts & Prayerz EP, and Freak of Nature, reflects a steady evolution toward a sharper, more daring edge.
Critics have noted this progress: Cleveland Magazine advised, “expect to find the high-energy, simmering pop-punk stylings that the band has established in the past few years — just, with more input and new flair,” while Brooklyn Vegan described them as “a rare band who feel catchy enough for arenas and punk enough for basements all at once.”
Reuniting with producer Brett Romnes at The Barbershop studio in New Jersey in 2024, the band tapped into influences ranging from Hum and Failure to Type O Negative, Quicksand, and Unwritten Law, experimenting with different time signatures and a heavy dose of nineties fuzz.
The single “Laughing Without Smiling” shifts from a creaky acoustic introduction into a chorus driven by power chords, with the line: “And I see you going through the motions of your life and it looks a lot like laughing without smiling.” Meanwhile, “Spit” opens with a self-effacing plea—“Kill me and replace me with a hologram. No one will ever know the difference, much less even give a damn”—before Eric’s scream on the hook warns, “The world you’re living in will soon be faded into memory. Spit in the face of humanity.” He adds, “It gets into A.I. What does A.I. mean for the creative process? Is it the end of human creativity? ‘Spit’ is a tongue-in-cheek sarcastic confrontation. I don’t like the idea of everyone relying on robots more and more. It’s my snarky pushback.”
View this post on Instagram
Other tracks include “The Gallows,” whose rumbling groove pairs with Eric’s ironic delivery: “Happy graduation from the gallows! You made it,” and the title track, which concludes the album with a blend of morbid lyricism and unexpected lightness: “Joyride the pale horse, I’ve got a secret handshake with Elvis.” “It encapsulates the album,” Eric notes. “In a way, it’s the most abstract tune. ‘Joyriding the pale horse’ sounds biblical. I’m making all of these different allusions to death, but I’m not referencing it outright.”
Heart Attack Man’s approach remains uncompromising. “When it comes to this band, it feels like everything we’ve done prepared us for this moment,” Eric concludes. “We know what we want to do and who we are. We don’t want to know what life looks like without playing music.”
