Valley Bar (Phoenix, Arizona)
01/24/23
Formed in 2017 in Richmond, Virginia, throat-ripping hardcore band, CANDY, has ripped the door of traditional metal music straight off its hinges. The group consists of Zak Quiram on vocals, Michael Quick and Steve Di Genco on guitars, Cody Mollen on bass, and Andrew Starkon drums. Don’t let the sugar-coated name leave you blindsided, CANDY is a hardcore band – period. They’re powerful, raw, filthy, dark, and absolutely abrasive – in all the right ways.
The band launched themselves into the scene, diving headfirst into experimental industrial and scummy noise rock on their first album, sounds so messy and chaotic that no band before them dared to touch. They’re most certainly not a “pin-point” sound, having blends of metallic, industrial, and harsh noise elements that flow seamlessly throughout a melting pot of psychedelia and electronica notes with a deep-rooted metalcore undertone. CANDY stuck their claim in the underground hardcore scene as they started touring around their home state. The band easily seeks to maximize impact, with varying song lengths and sonic deviations staving off listener fatigue, the most common hardcore pitfall; ever-moving, conforming, and confronting in guttural vocals. Their music is merciless and uncompromising, yet not without evidence of craftsmanship. They are artists of texture, despite vicious veneer.
A CANDY show is an out of body experience to say the least, easily matching the level of their studio work. An entire set filled with screaming speed-metal and doomy power chord riffs, inconceivable high energy, and urgent and frenetic alternate picking runs – never compromising on the tightness that’s required in such a style of music. A ludicrous amount of depth as if each chug is tearing away the ground beneath your feet. Sonically pulling inspirational influence from Burning Spirits Japanese hardcore, Can has a combination of visuals and sounds that is entirely their own. The tormented feel of Candy’s hardcore never shies away from taking the center stage even when the song tempos and lengths vary and sway.
The quintet first dropped a three-song demo in March of 2017 entitled Candy, and since then, multiple singles, E.P.s, and two full-length albums. They have two headlining tours this year in support of their most recent release, their sophomore album, Heaven Is Here.
