After 15 years of uncompromising noise and defiance, Phoenix chaotic hardcore/mathcore band American Standards have released their final and self-released album, ‘Future Orphans’. Dropping on June 30, 2025—exactly thirteen years after their debut ‘Still Life’—the record isn’t just a farewell. It’s a manifesto.
Mastered by Jay Maas (Defeater, Bane, Verse…) in the same studio where their story began, ‘Future Orphans’ distills the band’s essence into eight tracks in a collision of chaotic hardcore, mathcore precision, jagged metalcore, and post-hardcore intensity. The result is ferocious, unflinching, and purposeful.
“This isn’t a ‘best of,’” says frontman Brandon Kellum. “This is a final scream into the void. We wanted to honor where we came from, burn down what we built, and leave behind something completely uncompromised.”
That uncompromising spirit defines both the album and the band’s legacy. Since forming in 2010, American Standards have built a cult following on a fiercely DIY ethic—booking their own shows, releasing records on their own terms, sharing stages and drawing influence from with the likes of Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, The Chariot and The Dillinger Escape Plan. Their catalog, from ‘Still Life’ to 2023’s ‘Dopamine Dealer’, blended mathcore precision, punk urgency, and deeply personal lyricism.
‘Future Orphans’ feels like the band’s most deliberate work yet. More than a retrospective, it’s a journal of grief and growth, channeling punk’s anti-authoritarian energy into reflections on identity, decay, and resistance in an increasingly artificial world. It doesn’t ask to be remembered; it demands to be felt.
By closing their career without a farewell tour or grand sendoff, American Standards make their intentions clear: the music itself is the statement. In a scene often diluted by polish and performance, they leave behind something rare—an ending on their own terms, an album that proves heavy music doesn’t fade — it detonates on impact.
