Many years ago, the Long Island band Incendiary figured something out. Incendiary have been one of the biggest, most exciting bands in the hardcore sphere for a very long time, and hardcore bands don’t tend to last. But Incendiary discovered a way to keep themselves going: They became a part-time operation. Incendiary don’t release music often, and they never tour. Instead, the members of Incendiary work day jobs, and they play shows when it works for them — occasional festival gigs or weekends. Anytime Incendiary do anything, it’s an event.

The whole Incendiary approach has proven hugely influential; a whole lot of the bigger bands in hardcore have their own variations on the Incendiary style. Incendiary themselves haven’t released any music since 2017’s amazing Thousand Mile Stare, which was one of our favorite albums of that year. There’s been talk of a new Incendiary record for a long time now, and the band has finally announced plans for their first new LP in six years.

Incendiary’s new album is called Change The Way You Think About Pain — hard-ass title — and they’ve just shared the opening track “Bite The Hook.” It’s fucking awesome. Incendiary are among out greatest practitioners of the bouncy, groove-dominant, metallic New York hardcore style, and there’s a whole lot of Rage Against The Machine in Brendan Garrone’s clipped, rhythmic delivery. “Bite The Hook” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it brings absolute fire to the style that the band has already developed.

Here’s how Brendan Garrone describes the new LP, which Incendiary recorded with producer Will Putney:

We are kind of in rare territory being a hardcore band on their fourth LP. It feels like a milestone. By now, you’re either “supposed” to drastically change your sound or have it be the exact same thing as the record before. We didn’t want to do either of those things. Our focus was on refining the sound that we’ve optimally been working towards rather than any desire to make a huge pivot. We also wanted it to be more aggressive and more abrasive, in terms of songs and production…

The album is a mix of both the socio-politically driven content and darker, more personalized subjects. The album title is meant to conjure the concept of pain avoidance. Most of the songs have some kind of tie back to the things everyone does to avoid feeling any semblance of pain. “Pain avoidance” is a phrase me and Brian [Audley, guitarist] came across and kept in the back of our minds.

Below, listen to “Bite The Hook” and check out the Change The Way You Think About Pain tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Bite The Hook”
02 “Jesus Bones”
03 “Echo Of Nothing”
04 “Host/Parasite”
05 “Lie Of Liberty”
06 “C.T.E”
07 “Collision”
08 “Rats In The Cellar”
09 “Santosha (Illusion Of The Self)”
10 “Change The Way You Think About Pain”

Change The Way You Think About Pain is out 5/26 on Closed Casket Activities.