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 melodeath, metalcore, death-growling rap 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.
At the Gates – “The Fever Mask”
At the Gates’s new “The Fever Mask” single has gripped us in an “irrevocable howling rapture,” per the inimitable screams of late frontman Tomas “Tompa” Lindberg. But its arrival, which introduces the Swedish act’s final album with the iconic metal vocalist, is also unendingly bittersweet.
The band are in impeccable form throughout, with ATG leaning into a classically manic, yet melodious arrangement. Tompa is in fierce form while screeching of an eternal void of emptiness. Peak Gothenburg melodeath, to be sure.
The Ghost of a Future Dead arrives in April, and we’re primed to hang onto every last word.
Chamber – “violins”
An insidious surveillance van keeps an eye on Chamber in the Nashville metalcore quintet’s video for “violins,” the first preview of their forthcoming third album, this is goodbye… We thank them for the behind-the-scenes footage, for the song absolutely crushes.
The single alternates between hardcore fury and a smidge of alt-styled melodicism. It comes to a climax with a freakish perpetual motion machine of aggressively noise-fractured, almost Dillinger-ish guitar harmonizing, and then goes sick-house with a low-and-nasty breakdown.
It caps with a cry of “This will all be over in due time,” but if it’s all the same, we’ll be looping “violins” on repeat throughout the weekend.
Failure – “The Air’s on Fire”
Four-and-a-half years on from Failure’s brilliant Wild Type Droid, the L.A. space-rock trio have touched down with an aesthetically gorgeous, but anxiety-inspired preview of this spring’s Location Lost.
Failure coil shadowy alt-rock chords and EKG-spiking rhythms around Ken Andrews’ cooly-delivered, but trauma-reflecting allusions to a recent back surgery, and waking up from the procedure in a breathtaking panic.
A disorienting guitar solo of out-of-phase bends — not quite a callback, yet not unlike his string-contorting lead on Fantastic Planet’s “Dirty Blue Balloons” — adds a surreal layer to an already stunning track.
Ice Nine Kills – “Twisting the Knife” ft. Mckenna Grace
Don’t get it twisted: we love it when INK go for the jugular with a more metalcore-inspired approach, but the band’s balladic Scream-centric collab with pop star and Scream 7 actor McKenna Grace is pretty killer, too.
Spencer Charnas puts on a dramatic, movie history-mining vocal performance above piano trills, hearty guitar stabs and chorale motifs. Grace said her contributions pay homage to both Amy Lee and the film series’ chief heroine, Sidney Prescott.
Charnas has long-said that the first Scream led him towards finding his true calling. He initially tributed the film with The Silver Scream bonus cut “Your Number’s Up,” but on an emotional level, it’s got to be a surreal full-circle moment for Charnas to now become canon in the franchise.
PRESIDENT – “Angel Wings”
To borrow from the voyeuristic framework of PRESIDENT’s new music video, “ANGEL WINGS” is giving us an eyeful of what to expect from the masked marvels’ next era — this being the U.K. group’s bombastic debut single for new label home Atlantic Records.
“ANGEL WINGS” may ruffle some fans’ feathers with its Balearic dance beats and robo-vocoded vocal harmonies. Nevertheless, PRESIDENT soon lean into a tapestry of elastically-djented rhythms, deep-thrumming chorus melodies and a touch of trap.
Narratively, the PRES himself broods over relationship drama and those who refuse to lift their emotional veil (“Is it safe to say that you never fucking loved me anyway”).
Savage Ga$p x Mossback – “American Gothic”
“Why don’t I bleed like you?”
Rapper Savage Ga$p said he was entering a bold new era with his “American Gothic,” which he’s fit with a dynamic range of smarmy bars, emo vulnerability and low-groaned death growls.
The production, including guitar work from Mossback, conjures A Flock of Seagulls’ Paul Reynolds with its delay-decayed guitar shimmering, but also brings the boom by song’s end in a mosh-worthy break.