Drug Church

Albany, 2011: a band built out of the middle ground

Drug Church formed in Albany, New York, in 2011 and put out a demo that year on Ride the Fury Records before No Sleep Records signed them in 2012 and issued a self-titled EP. Singer Patrick Kindlon was already known across the north-eastern hardcore scene as the frontman of Self Defense Family, and Drug Church began as the more direct, riff-first counterpart to that band's sprawl. The line-up that tours today is Kindlon on vocals, Nick Cogan and Cory Galusha on guitars, Patrick Wynne on bass and Chris Villeneuve on drums.

Kindlon has never pretended the group sits neatly inside hardcore. Talking to Stereogum in January 2022, he placed Drug Church in a middle ground between nineties alt-rock, post-hardcore and, occasionally, pop-punk, and he was blunt about the economics of living there. He compared the job to blue-collar work, put a working musician's income at around 24,000 dollars a year, and said a tour only functions when the room mixes what he called knuckleheads stagediving with engaged longtime fans and older onlookers who just want to watch. That description of the crowd is as good a summary of the band's appeal as any critic has managed.

From No Sleep to Pure Noise: the records that built the reputation

The first two albums, Paul Walker in 2013 and Hit Your Head in 2015, both on No Sleep, together with the Swell EP in 2015, set the template: thick, mid-tempo guitars, Kindlon's half-shouted, half-spoken delivery, and lyrics that read like short stories about people making poor decisions. The step up came with Cheer in 2018, the band's first record for Pure Noise Records, which Kerrang! named Album of the Week and which brought the melodic side forward without softening the drums.

Hygiene followed on 11 March 2022. Kindlon told Stereogum it was a spiritual companion to Cheer, still turned inward rather than at society, and coloured by the fatalism he felt after two years of watching outside forces decide outcomes. He does not write lyrics until studio time is booked and the clock is running. Producer Jon Markson pushed his singing further than he was comfortable with; Kindlon admitted he was "kind of mad" that the band had written parts he did not feel capable of, and that the sessions ran through take after take until they got there. In between, the Tawny EP in 2021 kept the name in circulation, and the single "Myopic" in 2023 signalled the next full-length.

Prude: 28 minutes, ten songs, no wasted seconds

Prude, the fifth album, was released on 4 October 2024 through Pure Noise. It runs ten tracks in 28 minutes. Stereogum made it Album of the Week on 1 October 2024, with Danielle Chelosky reviewing, and The AU Review gave it four and a half stars on release day, calling it "brilliantly concise" and a record that "doesn't waste a second", picking out "Mad Care", "Myopic", "Hey Listen", "Demolition Man", "Business Ethics" and "Slide 2 Me". The record leans further into melodic alternative rock than anything before it without giving up the weight.

Kindlon, interviewed by New Noise Magazine on 2 October 2024, described the album as a set of characters in difficult situations, presented without judgement or solutions. He was disarmingly modest about how it happens: "I just listen to the songs, and I write lyrics. I'm not good at themes." He plays each instrumental four or five times before writing a word, and says the sound of the song dictates what the lyric is about. The two tracks he rated highest were "Slide 2 Me" and "Business Ethics", because both tell a compact story that actually resolves, which he considers the hardest thing he does.

Where they stand now: Deftones, White Reaper and a love song

The two years since Prude have been the busiest of the band's life. In autumn 2025 they were on large-room bills across North America; at Brooklyn Paramount on 7 November 2025 they shared a stage with Hot Mulligan, Arm's Length and Anxious. Early 2026 took them into arenas as support, alongside the rapper Denzel Curry, on Deftones' 15-date UK and European tour, which closed at The O2 in London.

On 16 December 2025 Get Some Magazine reported a spring co-headline tour of North America with White Reaper, running from Concord Music Hall in Chicago on 14 March 2026 to Mercury Ballroom in Louisville on 16 May: more than 30 dates, with Spy on most nights, Death Lens on the first leg and Public Opinion on the second. Tom Breihan of Stereogum caught the Richmond, Virginia stop at Canal Club on 6 May 2026 and wrote it up on 15 May under the line that every hardcore show can be somebody's transformative experience, framing it around a neighbour of his who had become a Drug Church fan.

New music arrived mid-tour. "Pynch", released on 12 March 2026 and the first new song since Prude, is the nearest the band has come to tenderness. Kindlon's own description: "It's as close as we've ever come to a love song. This one is about meeting someone who won't allow you to be a loser forever." No album has been announced. The band's longer-term intentions remain as Kindlon put them in October 2024: he expects Drug Church to eventually step back to the Descendents model of occasional shows rather than grind on indefinitely, though he allowed that if they wrote enough records that mature adults could play, they could play them forever.

On stage in September 2026

The current run is a headline tour of the UK and Europe with Liquid Mike and Downward in support. It opened at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds on 6 September 2026 and moved through Gorilla in Manchester on 7 September and Slay in Glasgow on 8 September. Trinity Centre in Bristol on 10 September and the Electric Ballroom in London on 11 September are next. From there the band cross to Dynamo in Eindhoven on 13 September and play Hamburg, Berlin, Poznań, Munich, Zürich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Paris, San Sebastián and Madrid before finishing at La Nau in Barcelona on 28 September. Two Australian dates are already listed for February 2027: The Tivoli in Brisbane on 26 February and Liberty Hall in Sydney on 27 February.

The set is short, fast and front-loaded. The Brooklyn Paramount show on 7 November 2025 ran to 12 songs, opening with "Grubby" and moving through "Super Saturated", "Bliss Out", "Fun's Over", "Demolition Man", "Slide 2 Me", "Million Miles of Fun", "Unlicensed Guidance Counselor", "Unlicensed Hall Monitor", "Myopic" and "Weed Pin", drawing on Cheer, Hygiene, Prude and Tawny. With a full album clocking 28 minutes, a dozen songs is a tight set by design, and the room Kindlon described in 2022, stagedivers at the front and older watchers at the back, is still the room the band plays to.