Prince Daddy & The Hyena - Hotwire Trip Switch [CD]

When you name your band Prince Daddy & The Hyena, you sort of accept that chaos isn’t a chapter in your story – it’s the entire ethos.

Since forming out of Albany, NY’s DIY scene, Prince Daddy & The Hyena have built a career out of reaching their breaking point and continuing forward anyway. Their first LP, produced by Joe Reinhart, captured a very young band figuring things out in real time; their massive conceptual undertaking Cosmic Thrill Seekers followed and pushed their ambition (and patience) to new extremes. Not long after, a serious van accident nearly took their lives, directly informing the intensity of their self-titled record. Over the last decade, the band has lost close friends and collaborators, endured relationship struggles, and faced countless moments that would have ended most bands without question.

But those experiences never slowed Prince Daddy & The Hyena down. On their upcoming fourth album, Hotwire Trip Switch, they recalibrate and reconnect with their roots while sounding more focused and self-aware than ever. Reuniting with Joe Reinhart for the first time in nearly a decade, the album pulls from the punchy lineage of Green Day, the hook-driven quirk of Weezer, the snarky urgency of Joyce Manor and Jeff Rosenstock – all through the distinctly bratty lens of songwriter and vocalist Kory Gregory. He’s backed by an airtight band including guitarist Cameron Handford, drummer and vocalist Daniel Gorham, and bassist Jordan Chmielowski. The album’s title comes from a lyric on the track “Crash Taylor,” and captures the chaotic, unstable, and sometimes unsafe energy that Prince Daddy & The Hyena thrive in. Ultimately, Hotwire Trip Switch is an album about surviving on borrowed time and borrowed electricity, pretending like somehow, that’s a sustainable approach to life.

Despite being known for crafting full-length experiences and hiding easter eggs between tracks, Hotwire Trip Switch was written as Prince Daddy’s first-ever “singles” record. Kory purposefully went into the writing process with a mission to actualize entire visions between the beginning and ending of individual songs, rather than relying on the context to click only during a full album listen. Without the added pressure to connect the dots, the result is some of the band’s catchiest and most instant material to

date.

Across the album’s 12 tracks, Hotwire Trip Switch shows off drastically different sides of Prince Daddy & The Hyena where exaggerating and experimenting are simply tools for sharpening and zeroing in on each song’s vision. “Big Box Store Heart” is his warped attempt at writing a love song, inspired by the loneliness of going grocery shopping without his partner. “24-03-04_Birthday_B4” was written and finished in a single, mushroom-fueled day that Kory calls his “best birthday ever.”

In the end, Hotwire Trip Switch doesn’t attempt to escape the chaos that seems to follow Prince Daddy & The Hyena like a shadow. Instead, it embraces it – wires running hot, pushed past their limits, and somehow still charging forward into whatever comes next. The vinyl is a 12" LP in a standard jacket with a double-sided insert including album lyrics and credits. -----

The indie record store exclusive color variant is Half Orange & Half Lemon Yellow vinyl, in a limited edition of 500 copies.

The general retail variant is on Neon Magenta colored vinyl, in a limited edition of 550 copies.

The CD is in a jewel case and includes a 16-page booklet of album lyrics and credits.