Cycle of Abuse is a hardcore band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When you listen to them, it is apparent they write well-executed songs that are heavy on the beatdowns, sound clips, and double kick pedal.
This band is a lot of fun! When I hear their cadence of angry vocals and hard slam/beatdown riffs, it never fails to bring a smile to my face. Cycle of Abuse recently wrote and recorded a new EP called Hated and Faded. It's the follow-up to 2022’s Ultimate Suffering EP.
Cycle of Abuse has partnered up with No Echo to present the first taste of Hatred and Faded, "Taste the Steel" The single features German beatdown band, Harlekin:
No Echo sat down with Cycle of Abuse to get to know the band and their plans for the future.
In what way do you hope your music impacts listeners?
Honestly, we've always just wanted to make tunes our homies could get down to. We're just friends who love going to shows and making dumb hard music. We've grown a lot over the last 5 or so years, and faced plenty of bullshit, but kept it real and kept it pushing. Our message is simple: DIY.
Don’t let anyone tell you no, build your own community, make your own path, and stay true to what you believe in. We’re not out to be rockstars or climb some social ladder or any of that bullshit, we just wanna do us, and that's why we think our stuff resonated.
We hope that comes across in what we do and inspires our fans to do the same: start bands, don't try to fit what’s cool, keep it real, create a community that supports each other, do it yourself and when you can’t – hire your friends.
Going into 2025, what do you have planned beyond the EP?
Well, right now we're focusing on promoting the new EP, working with the labels, and playing shows. Life's busy – Mike's in the steelworkers union, Piotr's always traveling for his welding gig, Ben’s a butcher, Izzy tattoos, and Hunter's a nuclear engineer.
We stay busy, but we always find a way to make time. We do have some plans in the works for an East Coast tour next year with our homies from Germany, Harlekin, who are featured on the new single.
At the same time, we’re already working on new tunes. Possibly a full-length in the near future, maybe a series of EPs that we'll put on a full length instead. We are definitely the type of dudes to kind of take things as they come, and take it one day at a time, but we’re always working on something.
How did you initially hook up with Harlekin?
It’s hard to remember exactly how it happened, but there were a few key players. After our first release, we got a few shoutouts from some legendary beatdown dudes which was a huge surprise. Then we started to get a lot of interest from German labels like Filled With Hate and Empty Shell Records who helped distribute some of our stuff over there.
At the time I was super into bands like Spawn of Disgust, and they fucked with us, so we had eventually kinda talked over the years about us going over there and vice versa for shows. But then one day the vocalist of Spawn of Disgust said that Harlekin wanted us to come over and do a tour for real and we were immediately on board.
Harlekin is one of the hardest working bands, and they are the most chill and friendly dudes ever. From day one we became family, so we had to have 'em on a track. Do yourself a favor and check them out.
The new single starts with a great sound clip. What is your favorite sound clip that has been used in a Cycle of Abuse song?
It's actually a sample from the 1993 classic, Cool Runnings, starring John Candy, about the olympic Jamaican bobsled team, it's an all time favorite for sure, true cinema [laughs].
Picking a favorite sample is tough! The Mike Tyson sample from the self-titled, the Joey Diaz sample from our track "Death Wish," and the intro to Ultimate Suffering, which is super recognizable now, all come to mind.
Mike loves finding and editing samples for the records; he's got an insane library compiled from movies, documentaries and just random shit he finds. Whenever he writes, he has hundreds of samples/movie clips to choose from, and honestly, I don't think he even knows what's in there. Samples are one of his favorite parts of any record whether ours or someone else's. But yeah, the samples are essential to every cycle record. I always wonder what people’s favorites are?
What shows do you have coming up to support Hated and Faded?
We got a couple shows to close out the year and have already started to schedule more for 2025. November 23rd with Mortician and Putrid Pile at Lovedrafts in PA and December 5th with our homies Chain Gang and Two Piece at the meatlocker in Jersey.
Both of these shows were booked by the one and only Gutterchrist, a really great dude and one of the best promoters around. Next year we got two shows lined up - Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Abject Misery in Baltimore on January 10th, and Bayway and Discontent at the Palace in Philly on March 1st.
We got more awesome shows we are working on, including a release show, but we can’t announce just yet.
Lastly, what's the best pizza spot in the Philly area?
Well, we are all in our own areas from Philly to Pottstown. Mike's favorite is out in Bucks County, a place called La Vera directly across the street from a “recently popularized” McDonald’s [laughs]. For Hunter, he’s been digging a new spot called Blazers Food joint in Philly.
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Hated and Faded will be released by the following labels on December 13th:
Heavy and Fast Records/Distro (edition of 500, 100 Smeared Face colored vinyl, 400 Gold nugget)
AAK Records: (Digipak CD)
Barbaric Brutality: (cassette)
Tagged: cycle of abuse
