Photo by Claire O’Boyle

Firewalker arguably were the start of something special happening across DIY hardcore and punk circles when they fully engulfed on their eponymous 2017 debut album, released on Pop Wig Records, the label ran by your favs from Trapped Under Ice, Angel Du$t, and Turnstile. Their 2019 EP, The Roll Call, followed as did a couple of cassette demos thereafter — all fast, scorched-earth hardcore set ablaze by Sophie Hendry’s black metal-singed vocals that weren’t something the rest of the scene had fully sparked into yet. In the time that it has since, the Boston band have mostly out of the picture as the seeds of their progression have spread. Their return — now with the updated lineup of guitarist Cecelia Halle and Sarah King, bassist Rory Tito, and drummer / producer Sasha Stroud — changes the landscape once more, however. “Carry My Own Torch”, the first listen from their sophomore effort, Hell Bent, is Firewalker at a more methodical incineration, stomping through ash and oppression with instruments annealed with an ’80s metallic hardcore heat in dropping hammer and anvil. “Don’t deserve this fate / Don’t deserve to live / Locked up in a life of servitude / All alone in a dungeon while you call the shots in your ivory tower,” Hendry growls. If you’re still standing in their way, prepare to get burned down by the torch they hold, as always led by their own beat.

Firewalker’s Hell Bent will be released June 28th on Triple B Records.