I've been in rooms with bands playing this kind of music since before most of the people making it were born. I know what it feels like when a band actually means it versus when they're just running a checklist. Resistor means it.
BITE THIS! dropped today on Pure Noise Records. Ten tracks. Produced by Randy LeBoeuf — the guy who's been behind some of the most uncompromising hardcore records of the last several years (Kublai Khan TX, The Acacia Strain, Gideon). The combination makes sense immediately. LeBoeuf understands how to make a record that hits without losing what made the demo dangerous, and Resistor needed someone who wasn't going to sand the edges off.
What This Actually Is
The band describes their sound as "knuckle dragging wika wika core" and that's not just a bit — it's accurate. The Long Island five-piece (Anthony Grambo on vocals, Anthony Conti on guitar, Ian Schneider on bass, Anthony Arce on turntables, Peter Smith on drums) are doing something that should have no right to work in 2026 and absolutely does: they're playing OG nu-metal through a hardcore lens and treating the turntables as a real instrument, not a gimmick.
Arce's contributions throughout the record are what make BITE THIS! distinct. This isn't the DJ-as-atmosphere approach. The scratches and cuts are aggressive, deliberate, and often the most violent element in a given song. It sounds like the mid-90s Chino Moreno fever dream collided with a hardcore show on Long Island, and somebody recorded it right.
The Record
Opening with "BORN 2 BREAK" — which sets the template immediately. Groove-forward, cocky, the vocals spitting rather than singing, the low end sitting in that pocket that makes your neck do something involuntary. By the time "L33CH" comes in you know exactly what you're dealing with and you're fine with it.
"DEAD SOUL" — the pre-release single — is the record's most accessible moment and a smart choice as the introduction. It has the hook buried under the aggression in a way that makes you replay it. You're not quite sure why you keep coming back until you've already listened three times.
The title track "BITE THIS!" is the record's clearest statement of intent. If you wanted to explain the band to someone in four minutes, this is the song. Everything Resistor does is here: the groove, the turntables, the hostility, the wit underneath the hostility. Schneider put it plainly — the band's themes "always boiled down to 'Fuck you.'" The title track is that distilled.
"PETTY FUCK," "LOVE SONG (BULLSH!T)," and "FROZEN AT 29" are the mid-record stretch that keeps the thing alive when a lot of albums in this space start to feel like the same song repeating. The sequencing is tight — LeBoeuf's fingerprints are on that decision.
"FEEL LIKE SHIT" closes it out without pretending the record needs a grand statement ending. It just ends the way it started — on the band's terms.
Why It Works
The nu-metal revival that's been building for a few years now is littered with bands that are playing the aesthetic but not the substance. The fashion is right, the sonics are referentially correct, and it feels hollow. Resistor doesn't have that problem because they're not reviving anything — they're just playing the music they play, and it happens to sit in this lane.
The difference is audible. This isn't nostalgia. This is a band that grew up on the records that built the genre and internalized them genuinely, then built something that lives in 2026 without being self-conscious about where it came from.
LeBoeuf's production deserves a separate acknowledgment. He recorded this with live instruments as the foundation — the turntables included — and that decision alone separates it from the laptop-assisted approximations of this sound that dominate the space. The record sounds like a band in a room, because it was.
The Verdict
Eight out of ten. BITE THIS! is not trying to be a landmark. It's trying to be a great record that does exactly what a great record in this lane should do: make you feel it physically, give you something quotable, and not waste your time. It accomplishes all three in 10 tracks and under 35 minutes.
Long Island sent a message. They meant it.
Pick up BITE THIS! at the Resistor store or find it on Amazon. More new releases in our metal news archive and reviews section.
