INTRODUCING: Contention

FEATURESHARDCOREINTRODUCINGMETALCORE



“We only really aspired to be a local band in the beginning.” How many times have you heard that one before? A group of mates get together, put out three or four songs, play a few shows and move on with their lives. Often that’s exactly how it goes, but sometimes the scene has other ideas – sometimes a band is too good to slip through the cracks and before you or even they know it they’ve got multiple releases to their name and perhaps even made it to a debut full-length. This is where we find CONTENTION and their vocalist Cosmo Vidussi, their debut LP Artillery From Heaven about a month old at the time of our conversation and having firmly cemented the Tampa, Florida outfit’s reputation as one of the best straight edge metalcore bands of that scene’s current renaissance.





“Obviously it’s ARKANGEL worship in some ways,” offers Cosmo on the album’s classic sound. “But in all genres you have the benefit of looking at the last 30 years of a genre and picking what you liked from it. At the time, EARTH CRISIS didn’t have that. They were picking from stuff that was in E standard and they were pulling from metal because there wasn’t exactly that sort of sound yet and they were creating it. Now we can look back and be like ‘yo, we don’t need this’ or ‘we don’t want to do this part’.”

Admittedly, that part of the process is led by Cosmo’s bandmates – guitarists Bayly Branson and Josh Howell, drummer


“I grew up listening to bands like FOUNDATION and EARTH CRISIS and shit where there’s awesome parts of those songs but the lyrics are really what sell me on that music,” elaborates Cosmo. “I’m always trying to make lyrics that resonate with people and stand out because there’s so many bands that are awesome – especially like death metal that I really fuck with, I love some of that music – but you can’t pick out a single set of lyrics… I like sing-alongs. I like pile-on parts and that’s what I strive for, because I grew up at the bottom of the fucking dog pile getting ten sweaty fat dudes on top of me trying to grab the mic. That’s what I’m there for so I want to recreate that experience for everyone.”


“I’ve always really been interested in the worst part of warfare, like nuclear warfare and the end of days type shit,” he continues on the inspiration behind what the band have described as an ‘apocalyptic straight edge album’. “I grew up watching movies like that, but also video games like