Revolver has teamed with Pain of Truth for an exclusive colored vinyl variant of Not Through Blood. Only 300 made. Order yours.
Lindenhurst, New York, is a small village on the South Shore of Long Island that's perhaps best known as the early stomping ground of '80s rock star Pat Benatar, or more recently, because it was devastated during Hurricane Sandy.
But for heavy-music fans, Lindenhurst also boasts a not-so-secret notoriety: This seaside hamlet has one of the most impressive hardcore pedigrees in the East Coast. It was here that Pain of Truth's Michael Smith was born, raised and practically incubated to become a hardcore musician.
In the Nineties, bands like Silent Majority, Neglect and Mind Over Matter emerged from Lindenhurst, and members of NYHC icons Madball and Sheer Terror have roots there.
The town also birthed more than one member of Backtrack, who became one of the biggest hardcore groups of the 2010s. Smith was at Backtrack's first show. He was only 12 years old, but his brother Chris was the guitarist.
"My mom let me go and everyone was moshing, grabbing the microphone, the whole thing," the now-28-year-old Smith remembers fondly. "And I was like, 'Holy shit.'"
The youngest of four brothers who all have a connection to hardcore (the third oldest, Danny, was also in Backtrack until their 2019 breakup), Smith always knew what he wanted to do with his life.
Now, as the frontman and songwriter behind Pain of Truth, he's about to join the ranks of Lindenhurst's hardcore bigwigs. In less than three years, Smith's powerhouse outfit has grown from a pandemic lockdown solo project to one of the hottest live bands in the genre.
The explosive hype behind their tough-talking, skull-cracking 2020 EP, No Blame… Just Facts, has taken them through Europe and the U.S. on tours with Madball and Terror. They frequently headline shows on the East Coast, and their logo size on festival bills continues to balloon toward top-bill placement.
Their beastly new record Not Through Blood might take them there — and beyond.At a time when hardcore's ceiling is higher than it's ever been, Smith wants Pain of Truth to reach even greater heights than his forebearers.
Featuring the frontmen of Madball, Terror, Trapped Under Ice, Incendiary, Vein.FM and others, the new album's guest list reads like a testament to hardcore's current boom period, and Smith wants to ensure Pain of Truth take full advantage of the genre's zeitgeisty appeal.
Music has always been his life — and now he's ready to claim his hardcore birthright.
"It sounds corny, but I always just wanted to be in a band, even before [I found] hardcore," Smith recalls of his middle school years, when he and his buddies would play Rage Against the Machine and Slipknot covers.
But once he witnessed Backtrack's intense live shows, his focus flipped to hardcore. Smith was only a guitarist at the time, but he and his 12-year-old friends started the band Stand Your Ground, who were taken under the wings of older crews in the scene.
It's not lost on Smith that his trajectory mirrors that of Madball frontman Freddy Cricien, who took the mic as a wild child at early shows by Agnostic Front, the band fronted by his older brother, Roger Miret.
Like Cricien, Smith's devotion to hardcore only increased as he got older. He did a brief stint as frontman for the short-lived Numbskull, before returning to guitar for his next band, Hangman. That outfit caught ears outside of Long Island, but just months after Hangman dropped their debut, the pandemic arrived and squashed their momentum.
But Smith was undeterred. The guitarist continued to write instrumental demos that he sent to his friend, DAZE Records owner Andrew "Lumpy" Wojcik. Wojcik was blown away and encouraged the reluctant Smith to add his own vocals to the tracks.
"I was like, 'Ah, dude, I hate looking at my old band and listening to lyrics," Smith says of his work with Numbskull. "I don't want to feel like that in five years."
He doesn't feel that way about Pain of Truth. Those five demos turned into No Blame… Just Facts, which Wojcik issued on DAZE in July 2020. By December, it was being hailed as one of the best hardcore releases of the year.
When live music returned in 2021, footage of Pain of Truth's mosh-filled shows littered hardcore social media circles. The crowds have only gotten bigger since then.
On the EP, Smith's talk-yelling vocals — a commanding cross between Biohazard's Billy Graziadei and Hatebreed's Jamey Jasta — were uniquely vicious. He also packed every track with guest vocalists, which lent the album the collaborative dynamic of a hip-hop record and a snarling edge of mob aggression.
Not Through Blood boasts its own murderer's row of hardcore titans — Freddy Cricien, Scott Vogel, Justice Tripp, to name a few — making it a blockbuster release for anyone invested in the genre. Pain of Truth are clearly on the precipice of something big, even if Smith's parents don't yet see the vision.
"They get nervous with me putting all my eggs in one basket," Smith says of his folks' skepticism. "That's what I've been doing, just quitting jobs to make Pain of Truth happen."
Admittedly, his parents watched his brothers follow a similar path, but never attain a stable, full-time music career. But 2023 is a different era.
The stratospheric rise of Turnstile (who've racked up Grammy nominations and play to thousands) and Knocked Loose (who just whipped Coachella into a frenzy) have introduced a whole new generation to hardcore, creating a ripple effect that's fueled a veritable middle-class of touring hardcore bands — the scope of which is nearly unprecedented in the genre's history.
"Hardcore is crazy right now," Smith enthuses. "You always have people in your ear telling you, 'This could happen.' But most of us in Pain of Truth have a gut feeling that it could actually fucking happen."
