Four albums into a career that has survived a near-fatal van accident and multiple creative reinventions, Prince Daddy & the Hyena arrive at Hotwire Trip Switch sounding like a band that finally decided to just write the hooks. The Albany emo group brings their latest record to The Song & Dance in Syracuse on October 20 — and the case for showing up rests on the argument the album makes: that a band built on gallows humor and conceptual sprawl can commit entirely to straight power pop and pull it off without apology.
About the Show
Hotwire Trip Switch, out on Counter Intuitive Records and produced by Joe Reinhart (whose credits include Hop Along, Joyce Manor, and Modern Baseball), represents a deliberate departure from how the band has operated since vocalist and guitarist Kory Gregory founded Prince Daddy in Albany in 2014. For much of the decade, the group worked within conceptual frameworks: Cosmic Thrill Seekers (2019) traced the long fallout of a bad trip, each track flowing into the next; the self-titled 2022 LP drew from a van accident that nearly took the band’s lives. Hotwire Trip Switch drops the framework entirely. Gregory shifted toward individual songs rather than overarching narrative, and the result is 12 tracks that critics have framed as channeling Green Day’s energy and Weezer’s hook-driven approach, producing what they’ve called “a crowdpleasing power pop record with wall-to-wall bangers.” The lead single, “Big Box Store Heart,” is described in press materials as “jangly and infectious.” The title comes from a lyric in “Crash Taylor” and refers to what the band calls “chaotic, unstable, and sometimes unsafe energy” — language that fits their history as well as any single lyric could.
Support on October 20 comes from Combat and Walter Etc. Walter Etc. is a California-based project with nearly two decades of DIY touring behind it, moving between ’90s punk, folk, and indie rock across a catalog that spans full-band arrangements and lo-fi acoustic pieces alike.
Venue & Logistics
The Song & Dance holds 200 on East Jefferson Street in central New York, a room small enough that the band’s close-quarters energy has nowhere to go but straight at you. Presented by After Dark Presents. Doors at 7:00 p.m., show at 8:00 p.m. Age restriction: 16+; those under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.
Tickets
Tickets start at $32.11, available through TicketWeb. Buy tickets