Candy

When CANDY were beginning to sketch the contours of their third full-length, they sat down and wrote a list that would serve as their guiding mood. Among the words and phrases: Big, Fun, Holy Shit, Ridiculous, and Blockbuster. That should give you a good idea of what It’s Inside You, out on Relapse Records this June 7th, is all about. Their mission was to build upon the world of CANDY—in doing so, they focused first and foremost on creating an energizing and empowering atmosphere, in which seeking connections with oneself and with others was central. CANDY is made up of bandleader and lead guitarist Michael Quick, vocalist and lyricist Zak Quiram, drummer Steve DiGenio and bassist Drew Stark. In their world-building efforts, the quartet opened it up and invited collaborators—like Integrity’s Aaron Melnick, Angel Du$t’s Justice Tripp, and Trash Talk’s David Gagliardi—who helped enrich and further define the band’s already distinctive personality.
“It is their love songs that feel the most extreme,” wrote Madison Bloom of Pitchfork, reviewing 2022’s Heaven Is Here, about CANDY’s tendency to infuse hardcore with tenderness—not necessarily in melodics, but in their music’s fissures, its in-betweenness, its raw emotion. Here on It’s Inside You this insight has come to its furthest fruition yet. Co-produced by Quick and Uniform’s Ben Greenberg (who’s also worked on records with Pharmakon, Ceremony, and Lamb of God), It’s Inside You is a kind of manifesto of kinship and inner strength. “In the past, we've leaned into the nihilistic and sad sides of that, a more negative side of the heaviness,” Quiram reflects. On this new record, CANDY leans into the space where heaviness becomes motivational. It’s pure energy—for action, transformation, aspiration. It might be a surprising turn of temperament from the boys who brought you “World of Shit,” but it’s part of the point: to turn self-isolation into expansion and adrenaline. “We really wanted a feeling,” says Quick—a good one.

These 12 tracks, which clock in total at just over 30 minutes, still include some classic CANDY political pessimism, especially on the three that lie smack dab in the middle of the record—the ”mechanical warfare” of “Dehumanize Me,” the “godless age” of “Terror Management,” and the “shattered days,” of the death metal-inspired, Psychic TV-referencing “Dreams Less Sweet.” But ultimately, the vibe is that, despite the doom, The faith is strong within myself. And as opening track “eXistenZ” encourages, Remember what you dreamt to be.

Spurred by an interest in connectivity and the spirit of community, this is the first CANDY record with more than one feature—It’s Inside You has five, all within the first five tracks. It was because the band felt more confident than ever in their sound that they invited collaboration. For each of the features, they had something in mind for their friends during the time of writing, and were assured each musician—all people they “trust to the fullest”—would take it in their directions, and “go wild with it.” And they did.

Founded in 2017 by Richmond native Quick, CANDY’s 2018 debut full-length Good To Feel solidified the band’s existence at the precipice of extreme hardcore. Good To Feel includes the gut punching tracks “Good To Feel” and “Lust For Destruction” and introduced the world to the metal-twisting, digitally-clamored ethos of CANDY. In 2022, CANDY released the aforementioned sophomore album Heaven Is Here, which conjured negativity, anxiety, and chaos through the funnel of beastial noise and techno-glitches. Where Heaven Is Here acted as the project to “push people away,” as described by Quick, It’s Inside You arrives to “pull people back in” with an invitation to enter the collaborative, viscerally charged and roughly tender world of CANDY.