Massachusetts punk band led by Dan Cummings goes full-throttle on an unapologetic and unforgiving sophomore album out Friday, July 26

Feverish ska-punk title track is now streaming: Listen

Downloads and assets folder x Watch ‘The Spirit of Massachusetts Avenue’ video

Album release party set for July 27 at Lowell’s Thirsty First with Lenny Lashley and others

BOSTON, MA [July 26, 2024] – By now everyone knows that old adage about making albums, about how a band has its entire life to craft the first one but only a year or two to write the second. It’s a cautionary tale built around creative pressure, unforgiving deadlines, and how a songwriter is now saddled with the expectation to not only maintain, but build upon, any success of the band’s debut.

Already Dead do not give a fuck about any of that.

Instead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Dan Cummings has taken an inspired approach in creating Something Like A War, Already Dead’s relentless and confrontational new album set for release on Friday, July 27 on CD and streaming, with the raucous release party going down the next night at Thirsty First in Lowell. He’s assembled his crew, leaned in to the energy around him, and allowed the seeds of his songwriting to take a louder, more aggressive shape than the Boston punk band’s 2022 debut album My Collar Is Blue.

“At the time of creating and recording My Collar Is Blue, Already Dead was a project,” Cummings says. “This time around, we’re a band creating an album. We have a vibe when we play together live, where inspiration comes on the spot for a new melody or drum fill. We knew what we stand for as a band and what time of sound and message we wanted to capture and put on record.”

Led by a fiery May rallying cry of a single in “The Spirit of Massachusetts Avenue,” which was premiered by The Spill Magazine and hailed by GBH’s The Culture Show, WBUR Boston’s NPR, and a host of independent blogs and radio stations around New England and beyond, the unapologetic Something Like A War is a statement of purpose. And like the gang vocals that permeate through the record, which showcases the band’s trademark punk rock diversity, there are many who have Cummings’ back as Already Dead prepare to make an even greater dent in the world.

Something Like A War packs 14 songs of punk fury fueled by aggression, observation and self reflection, and the battles we all face from external forces and internal demons. The title track, a ska-punk powderkeg that boasts Already Dead’s tireless, yet diverse, nature, hits the streams on June 28. “Something Like A War,” the single, is a missile of a song that clocks in at under two minutes. And might just create a new wave of ska-punk on its own.

“It’s about our personal battles – we all know ‘em, we all have ‘em,” Cummings says of the Something Like A War title track. “The struggle we go through to make the right decisions, day in and day out. Accepting we will make mistakes along the way. But still fighting every day, sometimes to amend the sins of yesterday. This and ‘Spirit’ represent the vibe I think the album encapsulates. Lyrically they have themes of social commentary and self-reflection, and musically both are on the harder side.”

Something Like A War, both the song and the album, brims with the type of intensity we all need in facing our daily lives – and maintains the Already Dead working class ethos, positioned steadfast as a voice for labor movements and working class solidarity. And besides, there’s no chance of a sophomore slump when the moniker is nicked from baseball, yet another way Already Dead are embedded in Boston culture.

“I was watching the Ken Burns documentary on baseball,” Cummings admits, “and heard the Ty Cobb quote about how ‘every game is something like a war’. It immediately resonated with me for a few reasons. First it just sounds badass [laughs]. But also to describe approaching something with that kind of intensity and determination struck a chord.”

And that’s something Cummings knows all too well. Something Like A War is a comprehensive and expansive album that lyrically touches on social commentary and self-reflection. But it’s also one of collaboration: Guitarist Brandon Barlett has taken on co-vocalist duties, adding some snarl to the band’s already incendiary sound; drummer Nick Cali has found a dynamic rhythm in applying the type of backbeat needed to hold this machine together; and new recruit bassist Brian Ferrazzani has helped provide a richer, fuller sound, as well as lineup versatility.

Beyond the band, the Already Dead crew rolls deep, with each contributor an honorary member: Engineer Jimmy Corbett, who recorded the record at the Bridge Sound and Stage in Cambridge, Massachusetts; longtime video collaborator Roberto Terrones of Berto Media, who created “The Spirit of Massachusetts Avenue” music video; longtime confidant and lyricist BOS The Rapper; and designer Mark Saffie of Saffie Design, who crafts the Already Dead single and album artwork, as well as logos.

The team around Already Dead helps sharpen the message, the approach, and the directive. They’re the ones who knock before Already Dead kicks the fucking door down.

“Musically, we’re just going for it,” Cummings says. “We are inspired by a lot of music, which can find its way into our songs. That can be great, and that can be risky. It’s a fine line to walk when blending styles. But when we write, it isn’t pre-decided. It comes from real inspiration in the moment. So when we dig the outcome, its like ‘fuck it, let’s capture it’. Then we went back and listened to demos to craft the album, and these flowed together. These songs as a whole describe where we are at, always evolving.”

In the age of the single, Already Dead have created a beast of an album that demands you to listen. From the aforementioned “The Spirit of Massachusetts Avenue” tackling Boston’s social inequality along a 16-mile stretch of road that connects posh suburbs to gritty homeless encampments in the heart of the city to “Landlord,” a previously acoustic rager about the cost of living that gets the full-throttle, plugged in treatment, Already Dead, with its blue collar mindset intact – Cummings is a longtime Boston union pipefitter – are relaying stories from the communities around us.

“Rock Bottom” skillfully reminds us through an anthemic chorus that we’re closer to the bottom than we are to the top; the street punk punch of “One Foot” echoes our daily struggles to keep it together mentally; and the unplugged “Unsung Heroes” reminds us that it’s the workforce that’s the backbone of society. Cummings even gets into non-fiction territory on “The Romeo Club,” taking a chapter out of the Tom Brokaw book The Greatest Generation about Cummings’ family member John “Lefty” Caulfield and his neighborhood friends from Cambridge, dubbed “Retired Old Men Eating Out,” and telling the gang’s story before and after their service in World War II. It even name-drops Charlie’s Kitchen.

Through it all, Cummings still retains his punk rock troubadour knack for Irish folklore storytelling and fist-to-the-face urgency – from the overwhelming stress ball of motivation called “Wit’s End” to the sweeping call for memories in “Shards of Glass” to the big room horn section of “Keep It Moving” – but here there’s an overarching lesson in dignity and perseverance in times of adversity. Each track tells a story, each track demands the listener pay attention.

“I hope people enjoy the record, first and foremost,” Cummings admits. “I hope it’s something they would hit repeat on. Then, from enjoying the song as a whole, they may connect with some lyric or melody that they didn’t catch the first time around, and keep finding those connections.”

Connections, as it turns out, are what led Cummings to this moment in the first place.

‘Something Like A War’ album artwork:

Already Dead declare a dignified purpose on the confrontational ‘Something Like A War’

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