Durham, North Carolina’s Personality Cult return with their third album (second for Dirtnap) and it’s a monster! Personality Cult started as a solo project by Ben Carr, making their debut in 2018 with a self-titled LP on the legendary Drunken Sailor Records. Gradually morphing from a solo act to the full band they are today, they were in the middle of recording their second album, when they were brought to the attention of Dirtnap through a tip-off from mutual friend Jeff Burke. Recognizing songwriting genius when they hear it, Dirtnap wasted no time in snapping the band up, and the resultant LP, New Arrows, was released to much acclaim in February 2020 (Right in time for you-know-what….)

Fast forward three years. Recorded in NYC at The Daisy Chain studios, Dilated was painstakingly produced by Ian Rose and Jeff Burke (Marked Men, Radioactivity). Burke engineered and mixed Personality Cult’s last record, but on this one he really stepped to the forefront and took over as producer, overseeing every detail of the project from its very beginning stages all the way to the end.

Of the recording process, Ben Carr says: “I really fell in love with working in the studio on this record. The freedom of time in a space where we had unlimited flexibility to work has changed the way I do things and what’s important to me while recording”

Cementing their status as a “full” band, Personality Cult has recently enlisted the considerable talents of Colin Swanson-White (Formaldehyde Junkies, Voight Kampff, and DE()T), transforming them into an even more formidable live band than before.

Dilated is thoughtful and layered, adding depth and texture to their already-considerable songwriting chops. With that said, it still rocks like crazy, masterfully building on the fast, propulsive, super-catchy-but-never-remotely-saccharine drive of past efforts. Mark our words: Dilated will go down as a modern-punk classic!

1st 200 on Canary Yellow vinyl (black vinyl also available: order HERE

X RAY ARCADE, CUDAHY WI

DAY 1 – FRIDAY, AUGUST 29TH, 2025

6:00 PM DOORS

7:00 PM SHOW

Radioactivity

Tranzmitors

Drakulas

O-D-EX

Betsy Borst(Sugar Stems, Solo)

DAY 2 – SATURDAY, AUGUST 30TH, 2025

1:00 PM DOORS

2:00 PM SHOW

The Marked Men

Personality Cult

Rotten Apples

Jeffie Genetic And His Clones

Fox Face

Dusk

Phylums

Chinese Telephones

DAY 3 – SUNDAY, AUGUST 31ST, 2025

1:00 PM DOORS

2:00 PM SHOW

Mean Jeans

The Ergs

Dirt Bike Annie

Direct Hit!

Nervosas

Mind Spiders

Lost Balloons

Modern Machines

Geoff Palmer

$85 WEEKEND PASS

$30 FRIDAY / $40 SATURDAY / $40 SUNDAY

ALL AGES

Weekend passes available now, single day tickets coming soon. (exact date TBD)

https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/51618549/dirtnap-25-dirtnap-records-25th-anniversary-fest-cudahy-xray-arcade

Personality Cult‘s new album, Dilated, will be out on May 2nd on Dirtnap!

The first 200 are on Canary Yellow vinyl, and available via mailorder ONLY. Get yours here: https://bit.ly/4i94Qqj

The first 50 mailorders will also receive a FREE cover-art-related print.

1st single out 3/7

ONE-TIME ONLY PRESSING!
100 clear* / 200 black
Out now, order today!

*20 copies of the clear vinyl bundled with some of the last copies of the white-vinyl edition of the debut album…save $5!

ORDER YOUR COPY HERE

Hot on the heels of their highly regarded debut LP, “Breaker”, Mark Ryan (Marked Men, Mind Spiders) and Micah (Why) return with 2 brand new tracks that don’t stray too far from the sonic template established on the LP. Short, sharp, pulsing noise attacks, heavy on the digital synthesizers and broken drum samples. 

Punk duo featuring Mark Ryan (Mind Spiders, Marked Men, Radioactivity, High Tension Wires…) and Micah Why…clearly coming out of the sounds they’d established with their debut album…skeletons of Ryan’s previous projects dipped into chrome plating, high-tensile-strength fingers folding into stiff gloves…knuckles cracking in the cold…ball peening against frozen puddles of blue coolant on the cement floor…the duo delivering two songs that squeeze out of the established sound but both possessing their own brittle urgency…the sounds pressed into sheets of glass and smashed into shard…twisting the stainless-steel needle tight into the end of glass syringe…applying the cold pneumatic squeeze…morse code beeping into harsh climates…administering the tension and brief release, into the eye before yanking you back into the storm…delivering the long instrumental squeeze before launching you back into the machine rhythms…both sides made to raise the hair on the back of your neck…you can almost catch the scent of the ballasts burning…can almost see fluorescents flickering in the dark…can almost hear the thin glass cracking in the cold. I know I’m so full of myself, and I hate to say it like that, but that’s what it sounds like to me.  Crank it and break some panes in your neighbor’s windows. — winch (green noise)

Dirtnap’s Trans-Atlantic hitmakers The Sleeveens come together once again to play a crazy run of dates around Gonerfest!

09.18 @greenlanternbarlex Lexington KY
09.20 @union_pool Brooklyn NY
09.21 @fuzzycactusrva Richmond VA
09.22 @local506 Chapel Hill NC
09.23 @thetatteredtartanpub Andrews NC
09.25 @eastsidebowl Nashville TN
09.26 @whirlingtiger Louisville KY
09.27 @gonerfest Memphis TN
09.29 @evolutionfest.stl St. Louis MO