For years, the Santa Cruz party-starters Drain have been one of the most joyous and exciting forces within hardcore. Drain’s live shows are the stuff of legend — wild and weirdly wholesome beach-party spectacles where people stagedive with boogie boards and innertubes. Their music, on the other hand, is a fearsome and fun take on hardcore that’s bouncy and thrashy and unrelenting. Drain released their full-length debut California Cursed in 2020, and it doesn’t feel too early to call that album a modern hardcore classic. Since then, Drain have signed with Epitaph Records, and they’ve just announced plans to release their second LP this spring.

The new Drain album is called Living Proof, and they recorded it with God’s Hate/Twitching Tongues member Taylor Young, who also produced California Cursed. Drain is now apparently down to just three full-time members — singer Sammy Ciaramitaro, guitarist Cody Chavez, and drummer Tim Flegal — and the album will feature “Watch You Burn,” the stand-alone single that the band released in 2021. It’ll also feature the ripshit new single “Evil Finds Light.”

“Evil Finds Light” is a full-bore ripper that sits very much within the Drain zone. Musically and lyrically, you might catch Suicidal Tendencies flashbacks: “Every day, this world is testing me! Smash open my head and fuckin’ set me free!” In the Ryan Baxley-directed video, Drain play a public-access TV show, and their performance turns the host — played by Taylor Young’s brother and bandmate Colin — into a spin-kicking fool. Zulu’s Braxton Marcellous is in there as Drain’s fake bassist, too. Below, check out the “Evil Finds Light” video and the Living Proof tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Run Your Luck”
02 “FTS (KYS)”
03 “Devil’s Itch”
04 “Evil Finds Light”
05 “Imposter”
06 “Intermission” (Feat. Shakewell)
07 “Weight Of The World”
08 “Watch You Burn”
09 “Good Good Things”
10 “Living Proof”

Living Proof is out 5/5 on Epitaph.