Destiny Bond’s The Love Turns Hardcore Into Healing Fire

When Destiny Bond play live, it’s less a performance than a full-body exorcism. Sweat darkens the floorboards; microphones rattle loose; teeth occasionally get left behind. At a recent San Antonio gig, vocalist Cloe Madonna Janzen lost a tooth mid-set—the second time it’s happened—and just kept screaming. It’s a fitting image for a band that’s turned the violence of hardcore into a vehicle for catharsis. Pain, for Destiny Bond, isn’t just something to endure—it’s proof of life. Their second album, The Love, is both tougher and more exposed than its predecessor, a record that makes emotional vulnerability sound like a weapon sharpened on concrete.

The Denver five-piece—Janzen, guitarists Emily Armitage and Amos Helvey, drummer Adam Croft, and bassist Rio Wolf—channel the high-drama precision of classic AFI or Kid Dynamite, but play with the kind of feral immediacy that makes every riff feel freshly clawed from the earth. Their 2023 debut, Be My Vengeance, flirted with melody and emo affectation; on The Love, that polish gets burned away. Janzen abandons the clean yelps entirely, committing to a serrated, full-throated scream that sounds lived-in, almost devotional. On the near–title track, “Can’t Kill the Love,” her voice hits like a gust of blood and adrenaline, backed by Wolf’s muscular bass and Armitage’s molten guitar solo. “Debt Perception” dives deeper into chaos, borrowing from power metal’s theatrical heft as Croft’s drums explode like a controlled demolition.

Janzen, who writes the band’s lyrics, is a rallying figure for trans punks and other outcasts, though her work reaches further than solidarity slogans. “Debt Perception” reads as both a manifesto and a threat: “You still won’t let us live,” she howls, “Now we swing as hard as the rest of them.” Her words double as a call to arms and an act of reclamation—hardcore as both safe space and battlefield. When she yells, “We bash back/Break glass/Keep score!,” it’s not just punk theater—it’s a survival tactic.

But The Love isn’t all external rage. Where Be My Vengeance built community through defiance, this album turns inward, interrogating the frictions that come with closeness. The opener, “Destiny Song,” is pure singalong catharsis—half mission statement, half band vow: “I’m bound to you/You’re bound to me/Baby, we’re bound by destiny.” Yet the cracks show on “Lookin’ for a Fight/Done Lookin,” a blistering speed-punk exchange born from Janzen’s real-life tension with Croft. She’s described it as a “conversation” between them—a sonic airing-out of ego, frustration, and forgiveness. Croft drums like he’s trying to burn through the kit; Janzen spits her grievances like shrapnel. By the time the tempo drops and she howls, “My home is right here/Wherever I find you with me,” the fight dissolves into something tender, even grateful.

That’s the paradox that makes The Love feel vital: rage as empathy, chaos as communion. Destiny Bond play like a band still learning how to live with their own volatility—how to stay soft without breaking. They may come away bruised, bleeding, or short a tooth, but they leave the stage lighter, freer. Sometimes, the hurt is the healing.