Photo by Andy Eclov

Artist: Cosmic Joke, the six-piece of vocalist Mac Miller, guitarist and vocalist Morgan Miller, guitarists Evan Row and Vince Amador, bassist Jake Goldstein, and drummer Niki Vahle

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Buzz: Snow storms. Below freezing temperatures. Being cooped up in your apartment as the lack of Vitamin D turns you into a shell of yourself. It’s the worst fucking time of year for many of us right now, but the pain relief from the winter blues is here with your new found wintertime workout partners, Cosmic Joke. Hailing from much sunnier climates in Los Angeles, the sextet are a dire injection of melodic hardcore punk energy that will at least distract your negative headspace with the sounds of thrashing up skate parks and adrenaline rush for your New Year’s deadlift goals.

SoCal’s Bad Religion influence is brandished right there in the above press pic of vocalist Mac Miller’s t-shirt, and that’s loudly evident throughout the band’s self-titled debut LP, but Cosmic Joke are also digging their own place into the cement of today’s modern scene by filling the gap between hardcore with smart punk-pop sensibilities that fucks with no adjacencies. What you hear is what you get, and there’s plenty of it to digest with Miller packing on heavy ponderings on modern consumerism (be it capitalistic, content, or our own self-indulgences) and the way it wrecks our satiation levels. It’s no pure Vitamin D supplement, but its effects across its 14-minute, 9-track listen will knock your endorphin levels up just as well.

Sound: Students of Bad Religion and Descendents turning the mirror on today’s society and using lessons learned from the masters to apply anthemic teachings on how to shatter destructive capitalistic norms.

Recommended: “Kamikaze”, “Tempered Expectations”, and “Cosmic Joke” off their recently released eponymous debut full-length

Directed by: Tyler Bradberry

Winter Tour Dates:

Cosmic Joke’s Cosmic Joke is available now on HardLore Records / Triple B Records.