By Carlos Ramirez |
@noechonet |
Today, No Echo premieres the new music video for “CowardICE,” the latest single from North Jersey hardcore collective Scary Hours. The song hit streaming platforms on January 28, and the accompanying video offers an unfiltered visual counterpart to the band’s confrontational track.
Scary Hours began as a solo project from vocalist and primary songwriter Ryan Struck, who started writing and recording in his basement during the pandemic to cope with factory work, sobriety, and the escalating political chaos of the time. What started as an outlet quickly grew into a full collective of longtime friends and well-known figures from the North Jersey scene. After releasing two records and several singles, the band made their live debut in early 2024 and followed with the Can’t Contend EP in January 2025, earning praise for its sharp political focus and undeniable intensity.
“CowardICE” pushes that mission further. The song directly confronts state violence, authoritarian power, and the normalization of terror against marginalized communities. Check out the by Daily Grime Media-directed clip below:
Struck shared the following statement with No Echo about the song’s origins and intent:
“I started working the tune out in October when I could see things were ramping up. Clearly, sending the Guard to major cities to beat the shit out of protesters and brown people wasn’t enough, so the regime has hired a private premier assortment of the dumbest, morally bankrupt, cowardly motherfuckers from your graduating class to terrorize and disappear marginalized folks and collect blood from any kind of conscientious objector who may stand in the way. What’s happening in Minneapolis now is the next logical step from what we saw in Chicago with these idiots killing Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez and commandeering a helicopter to raid a tenement of working poor immigrants in the middle of the night.
“I know I’m screaming into the echo chamber, our takes aren’t far off from what most people left of Reagan are saying. I also know that if raw footage can’t change your mind, neither can I, and I’m not interested in trying. However, it’s important for me to make this protest art for a few reasons. It’s how I learned about perspectives that weren’t being taught in classrooms when I was a kid, through the words of The Clash, Rage Against the Machine, and Bob Dylan.
“Also, I know there’s always talk in the comments section, usually from some MySpace-era edgelord hangover, about bands like us fighting invisible scene-Nazis, but truly, there are MAGA and ICE sympathizers in the scene. I don’t know or care if we’re important or not, but I like that there are a couple of gays and commies out here making noise to pester the old heads in the red hats (you’ll die off soon enough). We’re trying to keep kids feeling safe and trying to do right by the community. We raised $2,000 for the NJ Alliance for Immigrant Justice last year and have been part of several benefits for Cosecha and SafesceneNJ, a harm reduction organization with whom we have developed a very close relationship.”
Scary Hours will debut “CowardICE” live on February 6 at a benefit for SafesceneNJ at The Meatlocker, followed by additional Northeast dates in February and April. As always, the band’s focus remains rooted in community, accountability, and using hardcore as a tool for protest rather than posturing.
***
“CowardICE” is available now via Bandcamp.
Scary Hours on social media: Facebook | Instagram
Tagged: scary hours
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.noecho.net ’
