In Hialeah, punk isn’t a fashion statement: It’s survival, humor, and defiance rolled into one. Death By Holiday, the Miami band that records on tape and jokes about logging onto the internet with dial-up, carries that ethos like a badge. Their sound feels torn from a Reagan-era basement show; jagged guitars, sneering vocals, and a rhythm section that kicks like a busted air conditioner in mid-July.
Now, with their self-titled debut album due October 11, Death By Holiday is turning that Hialeah identity into a battle cry. Equal parts 90s skate-punk and 80s hardcore howl, the record channels the grit of their hometown and the urgency of today’s political climate.
“Hialeah is an enclave of immigrants,” says vocalist and guitarist Skam Holiday. “It’s unimaginably hard to leave your home, your friends and everything you’ve spent your life building to immigrate to a foreign country that often doesn’t want you there. We are angry at the way people are being treated, and we have to say something about it. These are the messages that bubble up from places like Hialeah.”
That urgency burns across the album’s ten tracks. Lead single “Employee of the Month” clocks in at a tight 1:51, a satirical gut punch at corporate drudgery that sounds as if The Office were conceived by punk godfather Lee Ving. Elsewhere, “Nanogators” unspools as a compact blast of paranoia and venom, while “Hialeah Efficiency” slows just enough to paint a vivid suburban portrait, its twangy edges and harmonies recalling Johnny Cash’s storytelling grit.
Skam insists the band didn’t consciously set out to echo the punk of Reagan’s America; it just spilled out. “We wrote the songs quickly; the album was written in just a couple of days. We were all angry, so we played abrasively and screamed a lot. … I think it sounds like that because we all listened to that early snot-nosed, smart-ass punk stuff and it affected us, so I guess we made that sound unconsciously.”
If the sound leans old school, the message cuts straight into the present. “I’m not sure about carrying the torches of punk resistance. We’re just really angry and want to affect some change, even if it’s small,” Skam says. “We’re just talking about the world as we see it, with all its misery, abuses, toxicities and hopefulness. We truly hope that message knifes through any nostalgia.”
Death By Holiday, rounded out by Nacho Holiday on drums and Dice Holiday on bass, may trace their roots back to beloved Miami outfits like The Brand and Pale Blue Dot, but today they’re surging forward with rawer intent. “We’re doing less tinkering,” Skam reflects, “and putting a lot more trust in the trajectory.”
The band will celebrate their debut with release shows across the tri-county area: October 11 at Poorhouse in Fort Lauderdale, November 1 at Sweat Records in Miami, and November 29 at Propaganda in Lake Worth. The album drops digitally on October 11 on Bandcamp, with a limited vinyl run available at shows.
For Hialeah’s favorite punks, the message is urgent, the sound is abrasive, and the trajectory is set.
