New Years Day
Kerrang! Magazine counts New Years Day among an elite handful of bands inspiring the next generation. Led by “the vibrant force of nature that is frontwoman Ash Costello,” New Years Day unleash anthems of discontent and empowerment, delivered with gothic flair and theatrical bombast.
It’s a sound that crashed into the Mainstream Rock Top 40 for the first time in 2022 with the cathartic “Hurts Like Hell.” Throngs of diehards and newcomers alike sing and sweat along with New Years Day, at festivals, in clubs, or on tours with Halestorm, Falling In Reverse, and In This Moment. Songs like “Skeletons,” “Come For Me,” “Angel Eyes,” and “Kill Or Be Killed” generate millions of streams.
Costello was a long way from her triumphant, breathtaking performance at WWE WrestleMania 37, where she sang Rhea Ripley’s theme song, when she first dreamt up her band in Anaheim, California.
The adoring “half-heads” who champion Ash online understand that their Scream Queen, who cites Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses as her favorite movie and DC antihero Harley Quinn as her muse, is just like them. She’s a bundle of insecurity and mental health struggles, with an unwavering commitment to her art, equal parts victorious onstage siren, and shy, reserved homebody. New Years Day captures that complexity, with each new song more confessional and relatable than the last.
The band broke through on their Century Media debut, Victim to Villain, and conquered the covers of magazines like Alternative Press, Revolver, and Outburn. Malevolence debuted in Billboard’s Top 50. Unbreakable opened at No. 3 on the Hard Music Albums chart. Loudwire included it on their list of 2019’s Best Rock Albums, alongside the likes of Bring Me The Horizon and blink-182.
New Years Day summon hooky hard rock with wit, charm, and vengeance. Like the music that shaped Ash Costello – including the larger-than-life and seemingly superhuman heights of Garbage and Michael Jackson; screamo and metalcore; to the soaring and empowering songs she sings today – New Years Day turns adversity into strength and pain into pleasure. Even when it hurts like hell.