Welcome to the New York Times Popcast, your Hydro Seal Extra Large, of music music criticism.

I'm your host John Caramonica. America. It's not a short. This is a last resort.

That'll wake you up, huh? I know it's a little louder, a little harder, a little more forceful

than we usually come in. What you were listening to is Power Trip, the Dallas Thrash

Metal, Hardcore Band, that is a song called If Not Us, then Who.

The frontman of Power Trip, Riley Gail, passed away at 34.

You know, I'm embarrassed to say that I never got to write about Power Trip.

It's a band I've been following and keeping an eye on for the last few years.

Nightmare Logic, which is a record that came out in 2017.

I just really, really love that record.

And unfortunately, just never got around to writing about them.

And when I saw that, Riley had passed.

I was really stunned and overwhelmed by the volume of the tributes,

the intensity of the tributes, the emotional content,

the intimacy, by all accounts, Riley was a special, earnest, moral, ethical,

decent person functioning in an adjacent to scenes that sometimes are not those things.

I was really taken by how directly his impact was felt on the individual level.

And I realized now's the time.

So we're gonna celebrate Power Trip on this episode.

We're gonna talk about the band's career. We're going to talk

about Riley Gale, what kind of songwriter and singer he was, what kind of person

he was. I mean, look, the kind of singer and person he was is that, if not us, then who, is literally the title is drawn from a quote from John Lewis.

...