Midnight Foolishness Reimagines Emmure’s “MDMA” with a Haunting Acoustic Descent

Brooklyn’s alt-rock outsiders strip a metalcore classic to its emotional bones, transforming rage into reflection with chilling precision.

Brooklyn’s Midnight Foolishness delivers a haunting new take on Emmure’s “MDMA,” stripping the track to its emotional core with a daring acoustic cover. What was once fueled by blistering aggression is now rebuilt from the ground up—quieter, slower, and far more unsettling. The band trades distortion for intimacy, pushing the song into a different kind of heaviness. Accompanied by a dark and unnerving visual, their version becomes a chilling meditation on exploitation, survival, and the darker corners of the music world.

Midnight Foolishness has long carved a rare space in Brooklyn’s underground—a scene that thrives on innovation and emotional honesty. Bridging nostalgia with fearless experimentation, the band has collaborated with artists like Jonny Craig and Joseph Arrington, refining their sound across years of relentless touring and creative risk-taking. Their reimagining of “MDMA” feels like the natural next step in that journey: a complete reinvention that exchanges ferocity for fragility, revealing just how much power can live in restraint.

Gone are the jagged riffs and relentless breakdowns of the original. In their place: trembling acoustic guitar, open space, and a vocal delivery that balances on the edge between confession and collapse. What once screamed now whispers. What once pounded now lingers. The tension comes not from distortion, but from the feeling that something could break at any second. The result channels the ghostly vulnerability of early 2000s emo—those songs that made you feel like you were intruding on someone’s most private confession. It’s intimate and uncomfortable in equal measure, forcing the listener to sit still and really hear what’s being said.

The music video extends that unease into something cinematic. Shot in a dimly lit garage, it opens with frontman Rob Corbino bound to a chair beside two others, under the gaze of a sadistic captor. The setting is claustrophobic and tense—every flicker of light and sound heightening the dread. But as the video unfolds, the violence becomes symbolic. The captor’s control dissolves into something ritualistic, almost sacramental, until the line between victim and survivor begins to blur.

It’s a striking metaphor for the emotional and systemic exploitation embedded in the music industry—a dark commentary on what artists endure, and how they reclaim power by confronting it directly. The band doesn’t sensationalize that struggle; instead, they embody it. By placing themselves inside the narrative, Midnight Foolishness turn the act of performance into catharsis, reclaiming the story from within.

That sense of raw confrontation has always been central to the band’s identity. Since the release of their 2010 debut EP The Sinners, Midnight Foolishness has thrived on contradiction—bridging pop-punk energy, grunge grit, and emotional candor. Their sound is rooted in nostalgia but never stuck in it. Over time, their music has grown darker, moodier, and more reflective, mirroring the personal and artistic evolution of a band that refuses to look away from the hard truths in front of them.

With “MDMA,” that evolution reaches a new level. It’s not just a cover—it’s a reclamation. The band dismantles the original’s aggression to reveal what was always underneath: pain, longing, survival, and the human cost of endurance. The stripped-down arrangement leaves no room to hide, and that vulnerability becomes its own form of strength.

What makes Midnight Foolishness’ version so compelling isn’t its novelty, but its honesty. The heaviness comes not from volume, but from presence. From the quiet that stretches between notes. From the willingness to let discomfort breathe.

By transforming chaos into stillness, Midnight Foolishness have turned “MDMA” into something entirely new—a song that stares into the abyss and, rather than screaming back, simply listens. It’s haunting, unflinching, and deeply human—everything that defines this band at their best.