Here at Revolver, we’re always on the hunt for new songs to bang our heads to — indeed, it’s a big part of our jobs. With that in mind, here are the tracks released this week in djent, hardcore, noise-rock and more that have been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we’ve also compiled the songs in an ever-evolving Spotify playlist.
LANDMVRKS – “Sulfur”
Marseille, France, metalcore vets LANDMVRKS erected a pair of new album previews this week, with their “Sulfur” marking a particularly potent crash of rap-rock turntablism, iron-heavy riffage and a wonderfully noxious, speaker-pushing breakdown.
Vocalist Florent Salfati flips from gutturals to cleans throughout, and when he sings that he’s “got a beat in my chest that I can’t stop,” we’re hoping he’s a man of his word.
It’s an illuminating first look at their forthcoming album, THE DARKEST PLACE I’VE EVER BEEN.
Reba Meyers – “Certain Uncertainty”
Reba Meyers came out of nowhere this week with the news she’s got her debut solo album on the way. Even better, she offered a first taste in the form of the anthemic, alt-rock-styled “Certain Uncertainty.”
The distortion-graced chords and yowl-rasped vocals veer more towards the experimentally melodic side of the Code Orange catalog than her longtime band’s concussive industrial metalcore. And while Gil Sharone is drumming on the song, these two members of Marilyn Manson’s current live band are leaning into something more emo-earnest than their other gig.
Summing things up per Meyers’ first lyric here: “It’s certainly entertaining.”
AXTY – “dismay”
While likely still coming off the high of their summertime-released Hannya LP, Brazilian djent-core heavies AXTY have officially capped their big year with a thick-and-meaty new single called “dismay.” The Sao Paolo foursome bring the heat with disgustingly catchy grooves, a mix of briefly bossa nova-subverting beats and modern metal melodicism.
Vocalist Felipe Hervoso also retches out some of the most hog-slop-harrowing pig squeals you’ll hear this year.
Brutally bestial beyond belief.
Deaf Club – “El Camino Car Crash”
San Diego noiseniks Deaf Club have cracked off a handful of covers over the years, whether reworking Killing Joke or Pixies, but their take on cult Nineties act Swing Kids’ “El Camino Car Crash” makes for an especially unique moment — considering Justin Pearson (also of the Locust, Dead Cross and more) sang on the original, too.
It’s not a beat-for-beat redo, with guitarist Brian Amalfitano gleefully glomming his effects-warped, dissonance-dialing note choices onto the raw octave ripping of Swing Kids’ late, great Eric Allen. Pearson is walking the walk again with a signature snarling fury, and it sounds as sick as ever.
Sarcator – “Where the Void Begins”
“We are lost in the treacherous dark.”
At first blush, that’s a pretty damn bleak assessment of the state of things coming from Sarcator vocalist-guitarist Mateo Tervonen on the Swedish blackened thrash group’s latest single. But their “Void” is anything but desolate.
The feverishly-inspired seven-minute epic plunges the band through grim-and-dusty acousticana, “Black Album”-worthy stomping, psychedelically-whirling guitar breakdowns and a backend wah-wah solo that makes Tervonen start whooping and hollering like an absolute maniac.
Superheaven – “Numb to What Is Real”
Superheaven’s comeback trail continues with another gorgeously distortion-pressed post-hardcore pounder.
As vocalist-guitarist Jason Clarke puts it, this latest “recurring sad tone” is about an emotional blurring that eventually overloads you to the point of complete and utter numbness — kind of like a never-ending Novocaine-and-nitrous-oxide trip.
Honestly, that’s not how the songs hits us, though, with the band’s melancholic wordplay and blissed-out tones instead heightening our mood, and making us feel all the feels.