During a pit stop while travelling between shows in 2023, Pinkshift found a huge fallen redwood tree. The three of them (Vocalist Ashrita Kumar (they/them), guitarist Paul Vallejo (he/him) and drummer Myron Houngbedji (he/him) lay down on the trunk, staring up at the canopy of leaves from the trees around them. What followed is an experience Kumar describes as almost psychedelic. They felt as if the trees were inviting them to stay there forever. “I heard these voices telling me that I’m welcome here,” they recall, “and everything I could ever want is in this space.”
That beautiful, perspective-altering moment of stillness and peace that grounded them in the present was a reminder of how much nature can teach us, if only we slow down, connect to it and open ourselves up to its wisdom. “I think nature is really inspiring,” they explain. “It’s the biggest and most incredible creative force that we witness as people. Nature is always moving forward. It’s always creating, it’s always changing, it’s always evolving. We have a lot to learn from that. I feel like there’s sacrifices that nature makes for the for the world — animals die, plants die, then something takes its place.” Shortly after, they wrote the words ‘earth keeper’ in their journal. They felt, in that moment, that they had rediscovered their life’s meaning. I know why I am here.
But they were angry too, Ashrita says ‘about the wildfires, feeling helpless in my body, living under the threat of capitalism, rising global conservatism, and the existential dread climate change had instilled in me permanently. And after October 7th, I couldn’t help but feel immense grief and anger over the rapid genocide in Gaza, and the rise of fascist, white supremacist rhetoric. I felt a kind of desperation, and I felt it everywhere around me. I and those around me were affected deeply and personally. So many people around me were fighting and shutting down, lost, angry, and confused. I wanted the Earth to heal me, but it felt like all I could hear was the Earth screaming.
It was at this point the band began gathering ideas for their second album, Earthkeeper with the nu metal-tinged ‘Blood’ emerging first and becoming the “seed song” from which the rest of the music would germinate.
Earthkeeper is a record that bursts at the seams with big riffs, big feelings and big ideas. At its core is a spiritual being whose name gives the record its title, “a reflection of universal consciousness and a protector of existence.” It’s a patchwork of anxiety, angst, grief and hope, juggling experiences both personal and existential across themes such as loss, one’s individual purpose, and what it means to watch the notion of a stable life collapse before your eyes.
Crucially, Ashrita, Paul and Myron are not the same people that they were when they made their 2022 debut Love Me Forever. They’ve grown, matured and been altered by experience. They crafted their debut at a time where they didn’t have as much experience playing live as they do now. “The first album was influenced a lot by stuff we grew up listening to because we’d never really toured,” offers Myron. “It’s really cool that now, after all this touring, there’s bits and pieces of all these bands we wouldn’t otherwise have listened to that have weaved their way into our songwriting.”
Lumped in with an emerging pop-punk resurgence at the turn of the decade that they never quite identified with, they’ve broken out of those confines by writing a significantly heavier record that could not fall under that umbrella in almost any possible way. In some ways, this was a product of their evolving tastes, and a more accurate reflection of who they are musically.
All three of them brought new influences into the studio. “Myron and I got really into Loathe and Knocked Loose,” adds Paul. “It inspired me to pick up the baritone guitar that I had, playing in lower tunings. I love the direction that the metal scene is going in and if I could reflect that in any way with respect to the guitar playing that was going on, I’d jump at every opportunity.”
You can hear it on the album too as Earthkeeper begins with the propulsive “Love it Here,” and a couldn’t be more direct first ‘Fuck your guns and fuck your violence, while we all bleed and you stay silent.’ It’s a sentiment Pinkshift has become known for, but later in the track with it’s sing-along chorus you can hear the band’s musical world has grown.
Lead single “Evil Eye” has quickly become a fan-favorite at the band’s energetic live shows, with Ashrita leading the mosh pit over staccato vocals about the perpetual surveillance state in 2025. Later on “Don’t Fight,” Paul handles lead vocals for the first time with Kumar screaming the chorus, a nod to their growing metalcore influences.
The centerpiece of Side B is “Reflection” Pinkshift’s first proper love-song in years, ‘now I only see the world in your reflection / it’s only through your lens I let myself breathe comfortably / I will always know that what it is is what it’s meant to be in your reflection.’ You’d almost think nature is healing.
If there was a mission statement to Earthkeeper, this would be it. They stand for unity, collectivity, community and action, but above all, the Maryland trio are hoping their new songs can have a more personal, emotional resonance too. “I think with this record, I’m trying to inspire you to, give a fuck,” Ashrita concludes. “You’re worth giving a fuck about. I feel like people don’t give a fuck about themselves but In the same way those redwood trees told me I’m welcome here, you matter and you belong here.”
LustSickPuppy is perhaps best described as a rapper/producer wielding maniacal electronics, but that doesn’t quite get the full point across. LustSickPuppy takes their love of rap but adds a punk energy, often shouting their lyrics instead of coolly delivering them. Blending that with high octane jungle and other club style beats LustSickPuppy often ends up injecting even higher doses of adrenaline than their forebears. With their new album Carousel From Hell, LustSickPuppy is poised to make their rawest work yet.
Naturally defying categorization, Brooklyn native Tommy Hayes fully embodies the perseverance and limitlessness of a Black artist unafraid of their own power and more than capable of seeing it through. Since 2019, Hayes has only succeeded at transforming inner turmoil into an incomparable and uncompromising sound. Beginning in Bushwick DIY with their first single “Goatmeal,” LustSickPuppy has always been a scholar of digital production, working first with collaborators as with their Cosmic Brownie and As Hard As You Can EP’s before gradually transitioning to working alone. Since the release of As Hard As You Can, LustSickPuppy has toured Europe three times, played Spain’s Primavera Sound Festival, performed at Boiler Room, and opened for artists Dorian Electra and Machine Girl. With Carousel From Hell, LustSickPuppy has fully shifted to self-production.
“I’ve grown up an outsider and a weirdo and just wanted to feel accepted, even though I never really was,” Hayes reveals.
“I’ve always felt this tense feeling in my chest that needed to come out and I had no real way of escaping it. I spent years of my life isolated in my head, not knowing who I was or how to feel and was constantly searching for chaos to make sense of the chaos I felt inside me. When I started producing it felt like for the first time I actually tangibly felt and heard all that was going on inside me.”
With knowledge of their stated goals of “genrefucking, representing Black weirdos, de-centering white spaces, destruction of male dominated spaces, representation of femme producers, murder of the patriarchy, and the creation of space for POC queer people,” the distorted shouts atop the atonal frenzy and fist-pumping bass of LustSickPuppy’s work is perfectly contextualized. The songs are born of the mentality of a punk rocker who loves the energy of the club and the expression of movement, and LustSickPuppy facilitates that at each show. Without such context, listeners may be too slow to grasp the importance of the aesthetics reminiscent of Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, and even Wendy O. Williams, likely failing to truly understand just how forward-thinking Hayes’ artistic choices and statements truly are.
“It is my intention to reconnect people with their emotions that have been numbed off of them so that we can return to the depths of feeling.”
Considering the aphorism, “art is supposed to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable,” LustSickPuppy is a natural response to our current societal conditions, and a gift that the world would be smart to recognize as such.
Combat has evolved beyond your wildest dreams to deliver you their long awaited Counter Intuitive Records debut LP “Stay Golden” due out August 16th, 2024. 14 blistering tracks of relentless rock, these kids from Baltimore have done what many dream of, some attempt, but only a few truly connect on. The Stay Golden era is here.
