When Index moves, it’s in lockstep, as a single, indivisible unit. Alan Creedon and AlexLichtenauer (both ex-Control Top) started the project in the summer of 2025, and it quicklybecame clear that its sound would be an outgrowth of their close friendship. Eschewing thedensely orchestrated compositions of their previous band, Index would instead focus on sweaty,visceral physicality, with Creedon’s guitar intuitively latched to Lichtenauer’s drum kit,navigating corridors of tricky rhythm as one. Vis Inertiae, named in homage to Nietzsche’sassertion that forgetting is not a passive act of inertia but something one chooses with intention,is the duo’s debut album, and it realizes Index’s founding ambition. It’s a subversive work ofelectronics-inflected hardcore punk, but it’s also the sound of two longtime friends making musictogether, reinvigorated by the act of creation.
The seeds for Index were planted in June 2025, when Creedon sent Lichtenauer a cache ofdemos he’d been working on. Almost unconsciously, Creedon had written these new songs with his old Control Top bandmate’s drumming in mind. Even though the two were living in different cities by that point – Creedon in Philadelphia, Lichtenauer in Los Angeles – they both knew they wanted to collaborate on music again. Once Lichtenauer laid their ears on that first batch of demos, things started moving quickly.
“We were excited about it, and it just kind of went from there,” Creedon recalls. “We made plans to fly back and forth, to learn some of the songs, and work on them together, and just get thehang of it. As soon as we were in the same room doing it, and it sounded good and felt good, Iwas like, ‘Nothing is going to get in the way of this. We’re going to do this. It’s going to be a realthing.”
“When I heard ‘Fractured’ for the first time, I was like, ‘holy fuck,’ and then I went to go to my practice space and play it,” Lichtenauer says. “And then when Alan came to LA for the first time,which was late last summer, that’s when I feel like it really came together. It was like, ‘Oh, yeah,
we can play these songs.’ And we just had so much fun doing it.” “Fractured” is one of the many highlights ofVis Inertiae, and it gestures at the impressive range that Index shows off on the album. It’s a pulsing digital hardcore anthem built around a glitchy breakbeat from Lichtenauer and an unrestrained vocal performance by Creedon—a performance made even more remarkable by the fact that Index is the first band he’s sung in.
Elsewhere, the duo breaks out heady krautrock grooves (“Earth”), frantic nü metal bravado (“Static Bloom”), and math-y metalcore skronk (“Paper Limbs”). Lead single “Cellophane” is an ever-shifting, slyly progressive collision of punk aggression and body-music danceability, a result of Creedon and Lichtenauer’s self-proclaimed status as “ex-hardcore kids who really like electronic music.” Crucially, the disparate sounds the band dips into on Vis Intertiae all cohere into a unified whole. “We wanted this record to not just be a collection of singles,” Creedon says, and the band’s debut accordingly feels like an intentionally structured body of work.
Creedon and Lichtenauer recorded Vis Inertiae in New York and Philadelphia with acclaimed producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Show Me the Body, Code Orange). Despite a litany of freak injuries that befell Lichtenauer before and during the band’s studio time, they say it was the best experience they ever had in a recording session, and Creedon concurs. Rizk was brought into the process early on, when the band played him some bare-bones demos that impressed him, and he was critical in helping ferry the songs to their final forms. It was Rizk who encouraged Lichtenauer to experiment with hybrid kits, combining organic drum sounds with electronic pads and triggers to emphasize the clash of styles at the heart of Index’s ethos. “What he pulled out of us was the electronic, industrial, nü metal stuff that we really wanted to be pulled out,” Lichtenauer says.
“I think the first thing Arthur said to us was, ‘We’ve got to accent the ’90s breakbeat Aphex
Twin vibe of your band,’ Creedon echoes. “And we did. It’s not obvious at all times, but thereare extra little hi-hat glitches and hybrid kits happening with weird layering. That’s somethingthat we really wanted to be, this hardcore band with one foot in electronic music.”
Even given its odd time signatures, off-kilter sense of composition, and futuristic studio flourishes, it’s the immediacy of Vis Inertiae that stands out most. Index is a mind-meld, even a body-meld, between two experienced players, and that symbiosis is what gives the band its imposing power.
“It’s all about Alex and I playing together,” Creedon says. “I do feel like we’re a team, and we play as one, so the guitars and bass and drums are all moving together, even if it’s in a weird time signature. That’s why it feels to me like body music. It’s this one cohesive unit, lurching around and pulsing. It hits you, and you want to mosh, or you want to dance. It feels like a creature as opposed to an orchestra.”
“I remember thinking when I heard the final mix of ‘Cellophane’ that it feels like you’re beingdragged forward,” Lichtenauer adds. “You’re on a leash being pulled forward, which is also themeaning of the album title. It’s about forward motion and leaving the past behind.” Unbound bythe deadening force of inertia, Index have taken their first step into what looks like a brightfuture.
