Returning to the fold with another onslaught of blistering, dark hardcore punk, Santa Cruz, CA’s Seized Up have unleashed their second LP, Modify the Sacred.

Featuring an impressive pedigree including members of BL’AST!, Good Riddance, The Distillers, and Fast Asleep, the band picks up right where they left off on their 2020 debut LP Brace Yourself, with a 10 song barrage of relentless, uncompromising rage, touching on topics such as religion, self-medication, and survival in a – literally & figuratively – sick society.

In between playing shows with legendary acts like Quicksand, FEAR, RKL, and Propagandhi, the band got back together with Paul Miner at Buzzbomb Studios to lay down the follow up to their explosive debut. All in all, it is a continuation of the band’s fast & hard approach in every way, and if anything, the band is more dialed-in and focused than ever.

The songs on the record come from extremely personal and often dark places for singer & lyricist Clifford Dinsmore, such as the first single, “Hanging in the Balance.” He explains, “In the time period I was fighting cancer, I was shacked up, feeling like a prisoner in my own house. Living in a semi-purgatory state, it felt like I was looking at the world from an outside view.”

Of the bleak, punishing “Omen of Despair,” guitarist Danny B simply says, “Musically and lyrically, this is where we feel Seized Up is right now.” The band also re-recorded “Forum of Decay,” from their 2021 7”, wishing for it to be featured on the album with the laser tightness the band is now playing with after five years as a unit.