No Bragging Rights bring the old-school jams and they bring them hard, fast and loud, the way this special kind of pit-friendly music is meant to be played. Evoking an era when kids cared more about circle pits, stage dives, pile-ups and sing-a-longs than flat irons and auto-tuned remixes, No Bragging Rights are the embodiment of the glory of simplicity.

Make no mistake: “NBR” (as their following likes to call them) craft a catchy chorus like nobody’s business. In fact, there are more hooks than your grandfather’s tackle box on Cycles, the band’s new album for Good Fight / eOne Music. But these five Southern Californians are carrying the torch for the region’s tradition of melody blended with metal mastery, livened up all the while by a dash of traditional hardcore groove.

Fans of anything from A Wilhelm Scream to As I Lay Dying to Strung Out will find exciting reference points in No Bragging Rights, whose style sits works equally with fans who go to Warped Tour and Mayhem.

Vocalist Mike Perez wears his heart on his sleeve while guitarists Christian Lee and Daniel Garrow blend chunky riffage with melodic might. The fluid bass playing of Ryan Warrell lays atop Martin Alcedo’s tasteful but driving drum work, resulting in an distinctly powerful sound. The album’s title track sees Perez giving a shout-out to his father, who provided him with a great upbringing despite being a victim of an abusive father himself. “He broke that cycle,” the singer points out.

Sharing stages with the best and brightest of the contemporary scene, NBR’s aim is nothing less than the uplift and empowerment of the disenfranchised youth who know self-loathing, self-doubt and depression too well and call the underground subcultural community home. NBR have been there and are here to tell us it gets better.

“I wish more bands had something to say,” Perez points out. “Those are the types of bands that have inspired me and that’s what I want to pass down. It shouldn’t just be about slogans that will sell t-shirts