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 deathcore, occult-rock, electro-punk 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.
Dayseeker – “Pale Moonlight”
While Dayseeker’s latest single is a cool-hued and heavy ballad that speaks to the metalcore expanders’ unique artistic vision, we’ve also spent the past few days wondering where the hell “Pale Moonlight” might sit in the Batman canon.
The lyrics are quite clearly shouting out the ’89-era Burton-verse, specifically a line from Jack Nicholson’s Joker, yet the chunky, consciousness-altering facemask vocalist Rory Rodriguez sports in the music video brings to mind The Dark Knight Rises villain Bane — with a dash of director Christopher Nolan’s Inception sprinkled in for good measure.
We’re going to ponder this in the Revolver cave some more while spinning Dayseeker’s cinematic new single.
Ghost – “Umbra”
Up until this morning, only a handful of European audiences had experienced the gloriousness that is Papa and the Ghouls’ “Umbra.” Now that the altar is lit and SKELETÁ’s officially out from the shadows for all to enjoy, we’re thinking that the album’s penultimate number is one of the best of the bunch.
The track starts with a spirited, neon-magenta synth fanfare, but soon launches into an eerie and Eighties-metal-anthemic crunching — above which Papa V Perpetua croons about all the love, death, sin and more taking place “in the presence of the chosen one.”
Mugshot – “Afore a Waking Nightmare”
Mugshot technically dropped two singles this week to preview their forthcoming All the Devils Are Here album, the NorCal hardcore group’s first album in a decade. And they crammed them both into the same video for our convenience.
If forced to choose between which side of the diptych is meanest, “Afore a Waking Nightmare” offers death-centric riff trilling, sleep terror-triggering washes of white noise and more. The lyrics promise “unending suffering,” but we’re enjoying our time with all of the new Mugshot tracks so far
Psycho-Frame – “The Portal”
“Grasp the knife/Clutch it tight”
What an absolute joy it is to get gutted by deathcore degenerates Psycho-Frame, vis-à-vis the chaotically slashing new single “The Portal.” The brees are positively bestial. The blasts are hella intense. And while it’s an assault in most every sense, there’s actually some unbelievably aching, melancholic shred soloing in here, too.
Going by the lyrics, it sounds like the multinational outfit — who semi-recently picked up Canadian vocalist Colter Cuthbertson (Killing of a Sacred Deer, World of Pleasure, Serration) — are keenly aware of how they’re killing it (“I alone am the honored one to take your life”).
Slaughter to Prevail – “Russian Grizzly in America”
We can’t lie: A good portion of why we’re enjoying Slaughter to Prevail’s latest single so much is its absolutely ludicrous new music video, which finds Alex Terrible going about his day alongside a towering animatronic bear. Among other goofy things, it finds the deathcore vocalist getting yoked at Muscle Beach with his grizzly friend.
As for the song, STP deliver the goods the only way they know how — through primally-pounded deathcore beats and from-the-gut growls that sound more animal than man. They deliver some new tricks, as well: The mid-breakdown interpolation of the very-sweet-sounding old Russian song “Песенка о медведях” (“A Little Song About Bears”) is both unexpected and super fun.
Wargasm – “Vigilantes”
UK misfits Wargasm made their grand return this week while delivering this particularly bombastic industrial-punk explosion.
While “Vigilantes” ushers in a new independent era for the duo, the self-released single from Sam Matlock and Milkie Way still taps into the electronics-mangled beatwork, spiky guitarplay and sung-and-screamed vocal trade-offs we’ve come to expect from the self-described “villains.”
Fueled by blinding rage (“Anger is my energy”) and filtered through an electro-punk aesthetic, it’s another furiously entertaining Wargasm banger.