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, heavy shoegaze, dungeon-synth 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.
Left to Suffer – “Give Them Death”
There’s a bizarre tonal seesawing going on through Left to Suffer’s latest Leap of Death preview. On the one hand, vocalist Taylor Barber’s swine flu gutturals and extreme shrieks are pledging mortal harm to anyone that dares fuck with his family. Fair enough, but then an olive branch is extended on the softer-sung sections, where the band are holding out hope for peaceful times while clasping hands by “the river’s edge.”
Less complicated is that the song, co-produced with Morgoth Beatz, sounds massive, whether looming large with violently lunging guitars or leaning into arena-sized heavy rock hooks. They’re giving us death, and we’ll take even more.
Extinction A.D. – “Epidemic of Mutation”
There are leaders, and there are followers. That’s seemingly the core concept of Extinction A.D.’s latest Alpha-leaning thrash attack, where vocalist-guitarist Rick Jiminez contemplates the mania of the modern era, situational apathy (“Do I have rage or have I gone numb?), “mistrust in the future,” and whether anyone of us will make it out of a hellacious societal gridlock.
Between his nail-gun howl and the rest of the band’s nasty crossover guitar trilling and uppercutting snare-bashing, they’re at least ready to put up a hell of a fight.
Cold Gawd – “Gorgeous”
There’s a pillowy, if distortion pedal-punishing feel to most of California alt-gazers Cold Gawd’s new single. Its slow-motion swirl of Deftones-to-Hum-styled hooks are fully hypnotic, and compliment the distant, teal-and-magenta cloudiness of Mattew Wainwright’s super shushed vocals — at least until the vocalist flips the script with a brief, juxtapositional scream sesh. It caps with an extended, though minimally miasmic guitar drone fading like a daydream.
In a word? Gorgeous.
Distant – “The Undying”
Dutch/Slovakian deathcore crew Distant start “The Undying” with a mournful and melancholy, though nevertheless heavy-as-hell minor-key edge. That alone should bring a tear to a metalhead’s eye, though the pugnacious and pungent mid-song breakdown — its riffs encrusted in an eons worth of blood-soil and gutter muck, singer Alan Grnja himself wretching up an ungodly bile— will also get your oculars watering.
It’s toxic noxiousness that not even a month of showers can undo — but we mean that in the best way possible.
Locked Shut – “Steel Spine”
Like a bunch of hardcore Atlases, Midwest wreckers Locked Shut are digging in their heels to shoulder the weight of the world. They’ve got the fortitude to do it, too, with “Steel Spine” bulking up through mega-sized crossover riffage and firm-footed lyrics about staying strong and never selling out.
“Steel Spine” is a strong first taste of Locked Shut’s forthcoming debut album, The New Chaos, which adds even more heft and menace to the single’s opening line: “I’m getting stronger with every move that I make.”
Shadow Knell – “The Briar Harp”
Shadow Knell is the dark ambient side-whimsy of Philadelphia punk group Poison Ruïn, and you could get a sense of the former’s fantastical synth-scape approach via interludes on the latter’s 2023 breakthrough, Härvest.
Left to their own devices on pieces likes “The Briar Harp,” Shadow Knell forgo Poison Ruïn’s blunter aesthetic to revel in gauzy, retro-futuristic renaissance fare music that recalls Tangerine Dream and primordial dungeon synth acts. ‘80s Fantasy film music for the movie in your mind.