Album Release: Surfing For Daisy “Echo the Madness”

Release Date September 25, 2026
Sarah Walsh

The 2020s have found their new Matchbox Twenty in Surfing for Daisy. This New Jersey-based band just released their sophomore album, Echo the Madness, Friday 9.25, and the tracklist brings the yearning back to alt-rock.

Surfing for Daisy is a 6-piece band formed on a porch in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Nick Francis leads the band on vocals and acoustic guitar; Cameron Seidel plays the electric bass; Dan DiSantis assists on backing vocals and plays electric guitar; Kathryn McCarty plays the keyboard and also assists with vocals; Mike Bernabei plays the electric guitar; and Steven Filippone holds it down on the drums.

The album is sonically cohesive and touches on a multitude of themes. The first song, “Two Grams,” sets the tone for the entire project: how do drugs and love affect us, how can they coexist, and are they, perhaps, one and the same? The sonic landscape of the album feels like a trip gone wrong. The thoughts that keep you up at night are present in the cinematic arrangements on every track. You can almost picture your favorite 2000s CW character looking out the window with one of these songs playing on their ipod.

There are a number of standout tracks on Echo the Madness, including “1952”, “Hot Blood”, and “Radio.” Out of 12 tracks, only two are marked explicit (“Methamphetamine” and “Radio”). The lack of explicit language on this project is impressive and adds to their songwriting abilities. It can be easy for artists to fall back on explicit words as a crutch for their lackluster songwriting, but Surfing for Daisy pushes themselves beyond that.

In June, Surfing for Daisy played a sold-out show at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. Anyone from NJ who knows anything about music knows that this is a huge milestone for this band and a very promising step in the right direction. They also played at Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL. 

Surfing for Daisy will kick off the second leg of their Don’t Quit Your Day Job Tour this November in Detroit, MI. Visit their website, www.surfingfordaisy.com, to check out their tour dates and buy their merch.

Photo Credit: Penny Krice