Album review: Drain – …Is Your Friend

Can anything keep Drain down? If drummer Tim Flegal’s recent cancer diagnosis was known to the band at the time of recording their third album, you wouldn’t know it. Springboarding off the skyrocket ascent of second album Living Proof, the Santa Cruz trio dial up the thrash hooliganism and good vibes with …Is Your Friend.

Everything you may love about Drain is here. Empowering hardcore energy? Check out the punch drunk ebb and flow of Stealing Happiness From Tomorrow, with Sammy Ciaramitaro declaring ‘Life is not a contest, but I’ve already won!’ Thrash metal antics? Cody Chavez’ ear for a killer hook is on point, with headbanging riffs and squealing divebombs aplenty. And as for Drain’s trademark positive mentality, listen to Who’s Having Fun? and tell us you don’t feel ready to take on the world.

Sammy’s larger-than-life presence as hardcore’s answer to Tigger also feels more earned as he opens himself up. ‘It don’t mean anything until you gotta go to your best friend’s funeral / But you’re only 10 years old,’ he roars on Darkest Days, recalling a childhood tragedy which ushered in a long period of acute anxiety for his teenage self. That thread is picked up on Scared Of Everything And Nothing where he details his battles with anxiety, trying to keep his head above water and Cody’s circling Jaws-style riff. Anxiety, haters and macho posturing are all fuel for Drain’s fire, though, as Sammy concludes, ‘The only thing worse than fear is having none because you don’t care.’

Simply, Drain give a fuck and …Is Your Friend feels like a love letter to the hardcore community as a whole that has given them so much. Some bands might find it cringe to write about loving music – as Drain do on Nights Like These – but they’re missing the point and, really, all the fun. Drain’s natural balance of earnestness, goofy optimism and slamming tunes is infectious and sets them apart from the pack.

Pit soundtrack. Self-help manual. A gateway into hardcore. Whatever you take away from …Is Your Friend, it’s guaranteed to put a gap-toothed grin on your face.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Power Trip, Speed, Scowl

…Is Your Friend is released November 7 via Epitaph

Read this next:

• “People are seeking a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, a feeling of authenticity and real emotion”: Inside the resurgence of hardcore
  
• Drain: “It’s about a good group of friends saying, ‘We can do this sh*t. We can make something bigger!’”
• Drain: “It doesn’t matter if you just got into punk music or you’ve been into it your whole life – this band is for everyone”