Hailing from Tampa, Florida, Contention is part of a new wave of straight edge hardcore reshaping the genre with a sharper, more personal edge. Fresh off sharing stages with Poison the Well, the band reflects on influence, identity, and staying grounded as their momentum grows. In this interview, vocalist Cosmo reflects on that experience, alongside the band’s influences, their approach to identity in a resurging scene, and how they navigate the realities of balancing music with everyday life.
Having a legendary band like PTW hand-pick Contention and Domain is a massive endorsement. Do you feel a certain responsibility to represent the “new breed” of Florida Straight Edge on this specific stage?
We all grew up as PTW fans so it’s surreal getting to play shows with them. When you meet a band you admire there’s always that risk that they’re going to be pricks, or have a rockstar attitude, but everyone was incredibly kind and accommodating to us. Their singer Jeff helped me load in merch the first night, their guitarist Ryan warmed up with the riff from our song Nuclear Peace, I punished Vadim at length about his time in This Day Forward—just all around great dudes in my experience.
Many reviews point out that being from Tampa, Florida, the “Death Metal DNA” naturally seeps into your hardcore sound. How much of that is a conscious tribute to the local legends (like Morrisound-era bands) versus just an inevitable result of your environment?
Very rarely is that a conscious tribute, we just happen to be influenced by bands that are influenced by Florida death metal. Most of us are into obituary/death/morbid angel and occasionally those reference points get mentioned (primarily by Bayly and I) but for the most part the guitarists are pulling from bands like The Swarm, Morning Again, Reprisal, Arkangel, Culture. To my ears, there’s more Slayer in there than there is death metal.
You’ve cited a massive list of influences, McCarthy, Camus, Dostoevsky, and Vonnegut. Which of these authors’ “worldviews” is most prevalent in the current state of Contention?
Vonnegut has a battered and cynical but humanist perspective that I really resonate with, but McCarthy’s bleak view of war and human nature is certainly more an influence on Contention’s writing. It’s a chaotic and fucked up world, it always has been, and my writing is a distillation of that.
There is a major resurgence of 90s-style metallic hardcore (Magnitude, Ecostrike, etc.). How does Contention maintain its own identity without becoming a “throwback” or “tribute” act to that era?
Playing in the year of our lord 2026 we have the fortunate position of drawing from over 40 years of hardcore music. There’s certainly bands that we are directly influenced by but there’s such a massive well to draw from that it keeps things from getting boring. All of us different tastes so while there’s plenty of undiluted metallic hardcore influence (like All Out War) in there, there’s also plenty of modern hardcore elements, death metal parts, and emotive shit (like Unbroken) woven in.
You’ve mentioned that longer tours are difficult due to jobs and family. How do you decide which “sick offers” are worth the sacrifice, and how does this limitation affect the band’s creative energy?
We do things by a code, and the first tenant on the list is whether or not something is going to be a good time. We like playing with bands that we’re fans of, we like playing new places. Whether or not something is a “good opportunity for our career” doesn’t factor in much.
We never set out to be a full time professional band. We’re just 5 fucked up dudes with chaotic lives who happened to stumble into some small measure of success with music we wrote in a farm garage. It’s difficult for us to write music regularly and it’s painful to say no to offers with legendary bands, but the upside of not being a pro band is that we’re not beholden to anyone. We don’t have to sign any contracts and we only work with people we trust.
Text and interviews by Andika Surya
photos by Evan (@emphotos98)