comes to grips with the Photo by Thaddeus Sisneros
Along with the start of their A Darkness Is Spreading Across North America summer headlining tour, Alabama metallic hardcore phenoms NO CURE intend to disrupt the scene with their explosive debut full length album, It Is Going To Get Dark.
The album arrives July 10th via Sharptone Records and finds the band working in close collaboration with Kevin Langley to fully realize their potential. Locked away in sequester to better focus their ferocity, the resulting introduction amounts to 12-track molotov.
Weaponizing their brand of sonic volatility, the album is fueled thematically by personal anguish, existential reckoning and the ongoing erosion of societal infrastructure, making It Is Going To Get Dark both appropriately titled and indicative of NO CURE's sound.
Ahead of the release and paired with the launch of the A Darkness Is Spreading Across North America summer trek, vocalist Blaythe Steuer offered a breakdown of the presentation - going track-by-track to better shine a light on the looming darkness. Navigating the harsh realities of life, Steuer comes to grips with the continued decay of of things things that matter most around him on an album that is as heavy thematically as it is sonically.
Championing the concept of collaboration and sourcing a myriad of heavy music influences, It's Going to Get Dark emphatically puts the Alabama collective on the map, with the kind of songwriting and attention to detail that moves the culture forward.
Steuer takes the lead through the darkness.
"When The Spasms Cease"
Steuer - This song feels like a gift. It came together in an afternoon on all instruments, and not a note changed from there besides Duncan spicing up the fills in the studio. One riff after another flowed out of my guitar in a way I wish happened every time. I didn’t have any “oh let’s do a song like this” or “let’s pull from that” in my head, it just happened to me. I remember I didn’t stand up until it was done.
It wasn’t written to be song 1 of our debut LP because it wasn’t written to be anything. It was just written. Once I had the lyrics sorted out it turned out that opening the record with HOW DID WE GET HERE works pretty well and helped inform the theme of the record.
We shot a video for this one, and it’s the first time I really flexed my muscles with a narrative. Typically we just shoot something dope and fun for a video, but with this song I wanted to communicate something specifically bleak.
"Oblivion Crusade"
Steuer - Song beats ass. I love how it ties in with "Your Children Will Drown In The Burning River" from I Hope I Die Here. It’s sort of the other side of the coin of my more extreme environmental conservation beliefs. "Oblivion Crusade" takes a specific accelerationist flavored stance and I hope people engage with that side of it. Also There Are People That Eat People, have you heard of that shit?
"Brain Matter Displacement"
Steuer - This one came from Aesop (guitarist) land. She had the whole song mapped out for the most part, which she wrote on Christmas by herself and depressed. I still have the video of her sending me the riffs, and yeah they didn’t change.
This song really came together once vocals and patterning came in to the picture. I used everything I could think of to make it catchy and engaging. We ended up with this middle bridge Downpresser riff type section needing some love, and then we had the idea to call up Jayway from Bayway.
I just sent him the lyrics I had and the timestamps of the part and he went crazy on it. I love having guest on our records do shit I can’t do, and he killed it beyond my wildest expectations.
Can’t wait to sing SMASH YOUR SKULL IN TO THE PAVEMENT 8x probably at every show going forward.
"Slowly Turning Blue"
Steuer - This one is still hard for me to talk about, as I pulled from painful experiences I had as a child and young person to inform the lyrics and music. It was a song I needed to write though, and it’s comforting to see others relate to it.
Riff wise this song punches hard. I wrote the intro riff for the band to do the Stormtroopers Of Death stomp live because that shit is awesome. I really enjoy how it teases the big harmonized riff section in the middle a couple times before actually delivering it. This one will be fun live, and I am very much looking forward to pileups.
"Ironclad"
Steuer - Aesop came to me with the monstrous intro/chorus riff, and we bloomed it from there. This is another one that came together very quickly and painlessly. It’s short and unrelenting. Kind of like Aesop.
I feel like I’m 10 feet tall when the verse drops in and I get to hit them with “Eternity of iron, millennia of steel.” I learned some new things I can do with my voice constantly touring on I Hope I Die Here, so it was exciting to explore that.
I’m a huge fan of Tyler Short (Inclination), so having him sing on this was awesome. Isaac Hale recorded his vocals for it, and I would have never thought to come in on that part like he does. I think it’s perfect and serves the song. Collaboration wins again.
"Starved In Sanctuary (My Hands Are In Your Chest Cavity)"
Steuer - We had a blast making this one. Aesop had the first few riffs and we built it out from there, which is something I always really enjoy.
The Carcass style riffs in this song really grab and excite me. I love sneaking nonlinear harmony and little chromatic flourishes in to melodic sections. Bands in our world don’t really do a lot of that, so I love to lean in to it. It’s fun to be this evil mosh crowd participation touring band, but to also play around with that kind of stuff. I find it very stimulating.
The middle section of this song is called The Sewer Riff. We transition out of the reprise of the intro riff with a section I loosely lifted from The Beast And The Harlot, believe it or not. Originally I wanted Duncan to just play 16ths on the kick for the guitar ring out in to the scrapes, but he threw in the tom section and it ended up working well. I think this is a good example of being directly inspired by something, but growing it in to its’ own thing.
Fun trivia, the choir sections in this song is my wife Shannon and I layered up. It is not a midi plugin. She’s a very good singer for some reason.
I am very proud of the line of “Break Your Neck To Look Away” and its context in the song.
This song ends with an acoustic guitar section Kyle came up with. I gave him the music for "My World In Flames" and asked him to derive and come up with something to help transition into it. He crushed it.
"My World In Flames"
Steuer - I sat on the intro guitar phrase for a couple years before finding a place for it. I knew it was compelling, but at the time I didn’t have a band it made sense for. No Cure grew in to that band for this album.
This song serves as a pace breaker and tone shift for the record. We spent a ton of time and mental energy on the order of songs for It Is Going To Get Dark because we wanted it to be cohesive and worth listening to from front to back. If we are gonna do LP1, we are gonna do LP1.
"My World In Flames" hits like a truck when it comes in, and it was cathartic recording it. I love how it feels like the song shifts in to gear when it drops back in to the verse after the brief blast beat transition section.
Overall, this song came together better than I ever imagined, and I hope it’s one people want to hear live one day.
"Convulsing In The Dark"
Steuer - This is actually the second version of this song. We actually recorded it 3 days after I Hope I Die Here came out in 2024 because we had a few random off days and we didn’t wanna just sit around for no reason. We didn’t like how the original version turned out though, so we reworked and recorded it for the debut LP.
Lyrically, I was going for an evil version of "Perseverance" by Hatebreed. I wanted to go Opposite Day twisted Jamey Jasta with it. I was really frustrated with people giving up on shit at the time, and this helped me get it out when there wasn’t a productive resolution in the cards.
This song has The Breakdown in it. It is my contribution to the conversation of the mosh part in 2026. We played the song live before releasing it on the Cattle Decapitation tour, and even their fans who are not known for being Dancers™️ were going off for it. I’m very stoked to rip it at every show for the foreseeable future.
The Breakdown is so simple, but it’s so disgustingly heavy and I can’t believe no one thought of it first.
"Sharpen The Blade"
Steuer - When this song was done I was so set on it being Track 2 for some reason. It just felt so right to me, but once we worked out the rest of the record this placement made so much sense.
This song is one of the heaviest songs we’ve ever done, but in a different way than the other songs.
I realized the intro riff / main riff / chorus riff whatever you wanna call it sounds like how Skyler Condor (Varials) looks when he walks, so I asked him to sing the last chorus. He’s one of the meanest sounding and most visceral vocalists I know. He’s also one of my favorite guys I’ve met doing music, so it was joyous to get to work with him on this. That’s my boy. I just wanna hang out with him every day.
The song purpose is to urge people to be ready, especially those currently being persecuted in our country.
"Purity Spiral"
Steuer - Fast. Evil. Vincent Bennett. I love that guy and I love this song.
"I Am Still Fucking Straight Edge"
Steuer - This song is me finally figuring out how to sum up how I’ve felt for most of my life about being straight edge, and about other people being weird about me being straight edge.
The last record was focused on Alabama and the southeastern experience, so there wasn’t really conceptual room for overly straight edge songs on it. This one there is.
I recorded the vocals for this around 1am one night deep in to the record. It was done in just a few minutes, and then I kept playing it on repeat and pacing around until I fell asleep around 4am.
Fun fact: the gang vocals on this song are only straight edge people, all involved in Alabama Hardcore. Our other friends helping with the gang vocals of this record were asked to sit out for this song.
"Everything I Love Is Dead Or Dying"
Steuer - Before the Cursed From Birth demo in 2022 I knew I wanted to call the Debut No Cure LP Everything I Love Is Dead Or Dying.
After sitting on that and mulling it about in my head, I ended up deciding to make it the final song of the debut LP. It stands to link everything together thematically and conclude the record. In a sense, the thesis (if you will, sorry) of It Is Going To Get Dark is Everything I Love Is Dead Or Dying.
Also it was fun getting to play around with straight forward but epic guitar harmonies in ways we don’t typically do.
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In support of It Is Going To Get Dark, NO CURE will head out on the A Darkness Is Spreading Across North America tour will support from Big Ass Truck, I.E., Bayway, and Boltcutter. The tour begins July 9th in Baltimore, MD and closes out with the band's highly-anticipated set at Sound & Fury Festival on August 15th. A complete list of dates and cities can be found below.
It Is Going to Get Dark, the debut album from NO CURE arrives July 10th via Sharptone Records. Order the album - HERE
