Better Lovers – “The Impossible End”
If you thought it’d be impossible to top Better Lovers’ 2024 debut full-length, Highly Irresponsible, may we introduce you to the hardcore supergroup’s newly beefed-up deluxe edition of the album, which now features penultimate pound-out “The Impossible End,” one of two bonus cuts.
This “End” is frontloaded with a severe but swaggering intro riff and noise-jolted mosh sections, but the track also sports pummeling pop hooks. Greg Puciato spits pure venom throughout, careening from caustic screams to sneering spoken word to sing-along crooning.
To paraphrase their frontman, the song is not fucked up beyond recognition — this is Better Lovers doing what they do best.
Blackwater Holylight – “Heavy, Why?”
“You feel it heavy, why?”
A fine question posed by now California-based doom-gaze evolutionists Blackwater Holylight, and we have more than a few answers as to why the first single off their forthcoming album, Not Here, Not Gone, absolutely crushes.
It’s partly due to the contrast between the wall-toppling guitar chords and planes-jumping vocal etherealness of bassist Sunny Faris, but the wildly oscillated prog-rock synths are a journey unto themselves.
Faris sings of everything fading away, yet we’ve been nodding along and cranking this louder and louder all week.
Heriot – “Commander of Pain”
“This is the meaning of violence.”
Fierce UK metal force Heriot commanded we stand before their “putrid vision of perfection,” but damned if “Commander of Pain” didn’t bowl us the fuck over.
Led by the guttural-to-gargoyle-shriek vocal work of guitarist Debbie Gough, the band’s latest track levels you from the jump with wrecking-ball beats and Machine Head-esque natural harmonic trickery. Midway through, Heriot heave into a double-time heftiness that further confirms the act’s “vile intention” with this all-out beater.
Megadeth – “I Don’t Care”
To perhaps no one’s surprise, Dave Mustaine is reveling in full-crank fury across the second single for the classic thrashers’ upcoming self-titled swansong LP. Who could ask for anything more?
Fit with grumpily dismissive sneers, punked-up ‘tude and bitingly shreddy solo sections galore, “I Don’t Care” is an aptly named kiss-off to the maggots, creeps and sheep continuously grinding Mustaine’s gears.
Are the lyrics a bit juvenile? Sure. But Dave sounds like he’s having a ton of fun while flipping off 99 percent of the population taking it all in.
Poppy – “Bruised Sky”
Poppy has launched herself out of her Negative Spaces era out towards a “Bruised Sky.”
Her latest single finds the multi-hyphenate phenom once again partnered with producer (and Bring Me the Horizon alum) Jordan Fish, and it sees her screaming about expunging the dark feelings that have been stuck in her chest. The detuned, mega-chunky tune acts as a cathartic, cloud-bursting resolve (“Can’t keep it under my breath”).
Judging from this first taste, Poppy’s upcoming Empty Hands LP seems to promise fistfuls of massive breakdowns and ever-intensifying scream sections are on the way in 2026 — though we expect plenty of surprises, too.
Return to Dust – “New Religion”
L.A. rockers Return to Dust got down and dirty for their latest single, and we’re not just talking about vocalist-guitarist Matty Bielawski giving himself a ritualistic mud-scrub for the desert-set music video.
Sandblasted with grunge-era gloominess — think Chris Cornell power-yowling over a Facelift deep cut — and hard rock grit, “New Religion” thrusts Return to Dust upon the altar as a band to watch.
Bow down.