FEATURE: California Hardcore Group Down Again Unveil Aggressive New Music Video For “Saboteur” Featuring Kylle Reece

Northern California hardcore group Down Again have shared their new music video “Saboteur”, bringing along Demon In Me vocalist Kylle Reece to add to its dominating presence. Since releasing their debut album in 2020, the band describe their latest release as their “heaviest, most ambitious song to date”.

Heavily influenced by the emo/post-hardcore acts of the 2000s, “Saboteur” brings out the best of the genres with its aggressive instrumentation and resounding combination of clean and aggressive vocals. Written about an unexpected falling out with a friend, the song masterfully transposes the frustrating emotions into fast-firing guitar riffs and searing vocals.

Leaning into the scene even further with the accompanying visual, the band combine modern VFX and nostalgic visual tropes for an eye-catching music video.

Vocalist/guitarist Lenny Costa speaks further on the effort. “The music video for “Saboteur” was special because we got to build the entire set for the shoot ourselves. We worked with director Tyler Dugoni and he was able to add some incredible VFX that really brought the video to life. The video really captures the energy of “Saboteur”, it’s fast, hard, and pissed off. It’s our heaviest, most ambitious song to date and the music video takes it to the next level.”

You can hear “Saboteur” and more speaker-breaking music on our New & Loud playlist on Spotify.

Watch the music video below, and read through the latest Q&A with frontman Lenny Costa to learn more about the band and the track.

How do you feel about the new single?

Lenny: This new single is one of my favorite Down Again songs we have ever put out. We really wanted to capture the feeling of mid 2000’s fast/aggressive/driving alternative rock music and then just scream over the whole thing. It’s something I don’t hear a lot of bands doing and I love how turned out. We added the breakdown in the second verse that I think helped make it feel more modern so it pulled on the nostalgia strings without feeling dated. Also, getting Kylle Reece (Demon In Me) on the chorus really took the song to another level, he is one of my favorite singers and it was so sick to work with him on this one.

What is Saboteur about? Is there a story behind it?

Yea definitely, I had a best friend for over a decade who one day just randomly stopped returning my calls and texts. He completely ghosted me and to this day I have never been able to get ahold of him to find out why. It’s been something has always bothered me and I’ve never been able to get over it.

How would you describe the new progress of your sound?

I think if you listen to everything we have put out so far you can definitely see our songwriting evolve, but we have the same vision we had when we first started this band. We’ve always wanted to blend emo and post-hardcore in a unique way and all our new music stays true to that. This is the probably the “hardest” song we have put out yet, but we feel it still sits nicely in our catalog.

What would younger Lenny say about the new single/music video?

When I was younger my idols were Underoath, The Devil Wears Prada, blessthefall, and all the other scene bands that blew up around that time. If I was able to see this music video back then I would think it was the coolest thing ever. The music I was writing back then was terrible so to know that I would get where I am today would make younger me incredibly proud.

What’s next for Down Again?

We are currently in the studio wrapping up our next full length album, that is where all of our effort and focus is right now. This next album is going to cover so much ground sonically I think a lot of people are going to be surprised. We have all the same emo/indie/alternative moments you would expect from us but we are borrowing from different genres like black metal/metalcore for other moments that create some crazy dynamics. Besides that we are going to hit the road and play as many shows before that comes out as we can. So stream our songs, learn the words and come sing with us when we come through!