Albany’s Prince Daddy & The Hyena border on hardcore and pop-punk ferocity on their new album’s track, ‘The Collector.’
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“A Random Exercise In Impermanence (The Collector)” – Prince Daddy & The Hyena
Prince Daddy & The Hyena’s third record begins at peace. The atmospheric “Adore The Sun” is, fittingly, angelic to kick off the throat-shredding power-pop group’s self-titled album. That quickly shifts, like the car crash the song tells, with the ripping second song, “A Random Exercise in Impermanence (The Collector).” The track sets the tone for the band’s most ambitious and hard-hitting album yet.
Where much of the band’s 2019 sophomore record Cosmic Thrill Seekers embraced emo ethics with hard rock flair, “The Collector” leans into the straightforward punk side of the genre, with a blistering pace and singer Kory Gregory’s raspy voice barking over power chords. While other tracks on the record flirt with other genres like the power ballad “Curly Q” or the slacker synth-rock-oriented “El Dorado.”
While Gregory’s voice has always been gravelly, “The Collector” leans into the intensity, with him giving the most throat-shredding delivery of the band’s discography. As the verse’s continue, it goes from a gritty melodic piece of to a frantic onslaught of manic hardcore barking. Just as the song’s narrator starts to reckon with a botched suicide by car crash, the consequences come rushing through with the more unpredictable yelps. Perfect for putting a voice to your “first run in with mortality you have as a critically thinking adult,” as Gregory put it in an interview with BrooklynVegan.
Got his blood smeared across my face
They say that he might be okay
But he’ll never be the same
Fought off the consequences
Up ’til he mangled his wrists
The descriptions of the mangled accident that kick off the song are incredibly fitting for the song, which is laden with plenty of “fucks” that lend themselves to that same intrusive level of wondering: “Oh god, how bad did I screw this up?”
Sleep
Until you’re thirty-nine
Then have a little kid
Just like your daddy did
Then let him watch you sick and growing old
Breathe
Until you’re forty-five
Then have another kid
Just like your daddy did
Then let them watch you sick and growing mold
Still, despite the growing weight of the song. After a slight groove change in the bridge that offers a bump up in speed, until Gregory (pretty cleanly) sings the song’s outro, which offers a fear of aging, usually not explored in the realms of punk where P.Daddy would find its contemporaries. While emo bands frequently dwell on the fear of getting older, P.Daddy expresses that fear from the point-of-view of a dad who will definitely not be there forever. It’s not clear if the fear is for himself or the kid, but it’s certainly something that an aging parent would dwell on.
While the rest of Prince Daddy & The Hyena offers a wide array of sounds that show the band is totally capable of switching up their sound (see: the delightfully, funky “Keep Up That Talk” or the theatrical piano ballad “Discount Assisted Living”), the band is just as catchy during an in-your-face, in-and-out punk song.
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“A Random Exercise In Impermanence (The Collector)” – Prince Daddy & The Hyena
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