Contention deliver hardcore for the end times on ‘Nuclear Summer’

Formed in 2019 in Tampa, Florida, Contention — who describe themselves as “apocalyptic straight edge” — have built their sound around metallic riffs, stompy drums, and aggressive, emotional vocals. With the Nuclear Summer EP, out now via DAZE, they take that same formula and create sweet, sonic chaos.

The three-song EP arrives less than two years after Artillery From Heaven, the full-length that helped establish Contention as one of the more exciting new bands in metallic hardcore. Recorded and produced by John Howard at War House Studio, opening track “Second Sun” features a strong opening riff paired with a heavy downbeat, creating a foundation for Cosmo Vidussi’s vocals. The song’s imagery is appropriately bleak: bombs, black rain, ruined cities, and a second sun rising where it shouldn’t.

There’s something particularly effective about the way Contention pairs that imagery with such relentless music. The song never gives the listener much room to breathe, mirroring its lyrics about a world where destruction has become inevitable. “When reason fails, our bombs will light the way” isn’t presented as some distant hypothetical. It feels more like the logical conclusion of a society that has already decided violence is the easiest answer.

“Blank Stare” shifts the focus inward. Rather than looking toward bombs and war, the song turns toward the people trapped inside the systems that create them. Its lyrics describe a society emptied of thought and individuality, following commands and consuming whatever information is put in front of them. The repeated imagery of empty eyes and scraped-clean skulls fits the punishing, dense, claustrophobic music, while the drums move through the song at a pace that never lets the tension settle.

At the end of the track, Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots” makes an especially fitting appearance. Originally published in 1903, the poem describes the psychological exhaustion of soldiers through the repetitive sound of marching boots. Taylor Holmes’ 1915 spoken-word recording was later used for its psychological effect in U.S. military Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. Here, that endless repetition becomes another piece of Contention’s larger picture: war as something industrial, cyclical, and almost impossible to escape.

Contention speak to the ways destruction has already become part of everyday life. The bombs are being built, the wars are happening, and people are still expected to wake up, go to work, consume media, and pretend everything is normal. That idea comes through on the EP’s final track, “X On Our Knees X / Upside Your Head,” a cover of material by ’90s straight edge powerviolence band The Swarm, aka Knee Deep in the Dead. Contention have cited the band as an influence since their first practice in 2019, so the inclusion feels less like a random cover and more like a direct acknowledgment of where some of their musical influence comes from.

That’s ultimately what makes Nuclear Summer work. At only three songs, it doesn’t have much space to wander or experiment in the way a full-length might. Instead, the riffs are violent, the drums are frantic, and Vidussi’s vocals carry the kind of desperation that makes the band’s apocalyptic imagery feel less theatrical and more immediate.

Contention playing last weekend's 2026 Sound and Fury festival - COURTESY OF DIAZABLE MUSIC BREAKDOWNS

Artillery From Heaven showed just how far Contention could push their particular version of metallic hardcore. Nuclear Summer doesn’t need to prove that again. It simply picks up where that record left off and makes the atmosphere even darker.

There’s no salvation here. No lesson learned. No reason to believe humanity will suddenly stop repeating the same mistakes.

Just a second sun rising in the west.