Dying Wish

Dying Wish aren’t precious about labels. Frontperson Emma Boster, guitarists Pedro Carrillo and Sam Reynolds, bassist Jon Mackey, and drummer Jeff Yambra are hardcore lifers, metalcore maestros, political rabble-rousers — all of these tags apply to the Portland quintet who’ve become a fixture of the heavy music landscape without sacrificing the DIY ethos instilled upon them as teens. After gaining underground notoriety in the late 2010s, Dying Wish emerged from the pandemic with two battering albums, Fragments of a Bitter Memory (2021) and Symptoms of Survival (2023), that catapulted them to the forefront of today’s thriving hardcore scene. Live, their crowds are rambunctious no matter who they tour with, whether it’s hardcore knuckle-draggers Pain of Truth or metalcore bigwigs Spiritbox. Their bracing third album, Flesh Stays Together, reflects not just their “hardened” worldview, as Boster puts it, but also their bold confidence as songwriters who aren’t afraid to shake up tired metalcore formulas.