New Years Day

The once self-categorized “Hauntedmansioncore” band, the female-fronted New Years Day goes pop-metal, ushering fun and dark, heavy riffs, while maintaining a vivacious and down-to-earth persona. With the band’s newest album, Unbreakable, NYD reveals a lighter, even more enticing side to them.

- Tess Adamakos

“Our last record was very serious and dark and this is a lot more fun,” says New Years Day founder and lead singer, Ash Costello. “We set out to make a pop-metal record and we nailed it.”

Before embracing the electric and melodic side of pop-metal, the members of NYD had started the “Hauntedmansioncore” genre, through their similar outlook on growing up going to Disneyland.

“There’s this juxtaposition of this fun, happiest place on Earth, but there's a dark underbelly to Disneyland that I was always fascinated with,” Costello said. “Like, where was Walt Disney's severed head?”

As New Years Day’s musical style evolved, they took a leap of faith with their production process. When Costello first expressed that she wanted to “make a poppy metal album, it was hard for a lot of people to understand.” This included potential writers and producers.

“I eventually found the right team who really understood it, helped me make it a reality, and took it to the next level,” she said. “Hiring two producers instead of one is unheard of in the music world. What I've found is with any producer, male or female, they know what they're doing and they don't want other people to touch it. It's an ego thing.”

While normally there are multiple songwriters on an album, having two producers is atypical, because aligning and weaving multiple visions into one is difficult to execute. However, under the work of producers Mitch Marlow and Scott Stevens, Unbreakable achieves this.