Not Your Kingdom, MADBALL's tenth studio album, arrived on July 24 via Nuclear Blast — the New York hardcore veterans' first new record in eight years. In a new interview with Emilee Capogni, vocalist Freddy Cricien compared the making of it to the making of 1994's Set It Off, and the distance between the two is mostly a distance in nerves.
"Musically, the album's very different from 'Set It Off'," Cricien said. "Obviously, it's an evolution of MADBALL. The angst and the essence of MADBALL is always there. But musically it's obviously a different time and different version of us."
The debut was cut in a home studio in Massachusetts — fancy, by his standards at the time. "It was a lot of pressure, from what I remember, because it was our first LP, our first full-length. We were just figuring out who we are as a band, still growing as people. We were young. And I didn't know how to write music that well. I was just starting to write my own lyrics and form my own ideas about structures. It was a cool experience, but it was a bit stressful."
Album ten went the other way. "Going into 'Not Your Kingdom', we're coming from a place of more experience. We know who we are as people, for better or worse. We know who we are as a band, for better or worse. We know now what this band is, what it represents and what it should sound like in 2026. And so the process just seemed a little more relaxed. There was a little more confidence, less pressure, for some weird reason, even though it was album number 10, and that's a big deal."
He credits the writing core he calls "the Mikes" — guitarist Mike Gurnari and drummer Mike Justian. "The Mikes and I really had a good writing relationship, and so that just carried over to the recording process and everything else. It was just smooth, and we were on the same page with most things — music, structure, everything." The record was made in Nashville with co-producer Andrew Baylis.
Asked whether any tracks were leftovers, Cricien was firm: everything on Not Your Kingdom is new. "Some are older than others. Some were around for a couple of years because it was a long gap between records… But we had some songs lingering for a while, and then some were written on the spot. There were two — at least two — songs that were written in the studio."
He noted the irony. "On 'Set It Off', we did have old songs. If you really look at it, there are songs from all our older releases just redone, because we didn't have a lot of material." The eight-year gap, he added, was not artistic paralysis: "The pandemic happened, and things surrounding that affected everyone in the world. And so it wasn't time. And then finally when we felt it was time, this is when we made it happen."