A Dying Light - Arson Charge
Arson Charge is a new Thrash Punk band hailing from Denver, Colorado, and they’re poised to release their debut album on October 3rd, 2025. I had another unique opportunity to listen to the album before its release and was not disappointed! My love of music started with Punk music, albeit Pop-Punk at first. As the years wore on and my tastes matured, I began to dive headfirst into other Punk genres, like Hardcore, Horror Punk, Skate Punk, Punk Metal, and Grindcore, to name a few, which in turn opened the floodgates for heavier genres for me to fall in love with. All these years later, Punk and its many forms have had a place in my heart, even if I don’t listen to it nearly as much as I used to. These days, I mostly listen to Deathcore, Metalcore, Hardcore, and good ol’ fashioned Divorced Dad Rock! When the opportunity came along for me to check out Arson Charge, I knew I had to jump on it to see if they scratched the Punk itch I’ve been missing for so long.
A Dying Light manages to balance itself between Thrash Punk and Hardcore, with other genres occasionally slipping through (there’s a good Electronic/Industrial sound to the first track on the album, “The Feeding Grounds”, and the title track at the end of the record spends the first half sounding like a Classic Rock ballad). The vocals are raw and aggressive, the drumming is frenetic and controlled simultaneously, the bass playing is deep, rich, and present, and the guitar is crunchy and powerful. From the moment the record begins, there’s an energy present that demands your attention. Sonically, every song sounds like a wall of sound coming at you from every side, with those walls closing in on you to crush you like the trap in Saw V that Detective Peter Strahm gets stuck in (blame the Saw reference on me entering “Spooky Season”). RIP Detective Strahm.
One of the few issues I had with the record was that the songs started to bleed together as I kept listening. The songs are well-written and structured, but I sometimes asked myself, “Is this the same song I heard three songs ago?”. Creating an individual identity for each song can be an arduous task, especially if the record was written and recorded in a vacuum or a relatively short period of time. I’m not sure if that was the case for Arson Charge, but it’s something I’d love for them to consider with their next record. There are certainly early attempts at this here, with the intro song “The Feeding Grounds” and the title track sounding unique and having their own identity, so it’s certainly not an impossible task for the band. Despite this minor criticism, I still found tracks I thoroughly enjoyed and wanted to highlight. I’ve mentioned “The Feeding Grounds” a few times, so I want to highlight it here as a no-skip intro that is worth listening to as the opener of the record. I know some people skip these types of intros for whatever reason, but this is not the time for that. “One by One” is another track to check out with a fun intro that leans into a pure Punk sound before blasting into a barrage of Hardcore. The song is fast-paced and ready to be moshed to, no batteries required. Finally, I’d suggest checking out “A New Throne” if you’re looking for a little Mastodon mixed in with your Thrash Punk. The song features slightly stripped-back vocals with killer drum fills and sludgey riffs.
A Dying Light is an impressive debut album and one worth checking out if you are a fan of Punk and Hardcore. It managed to fill an anarchy Circle-A symbol-sized hole in my heart that I didn’t realize I was missing and has certainly reinvigorated my interest in the genre after inadvertently stepping back from it quite some time ago. I can’t wait to see how far Arson Charge goes after this release!