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 masked alt-metal, stone-footed sludge, cosmic shoegaze 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.
Cenobia – “Swallowed by the World”
Song by song, we’re only becoming more hopelessly devoted to Cenobia.
The shrouded Aussie alt-metal artist delivers another shadowy, dark-chugged anthem — this and her first three singles now confirmed to be part of the upcoming Lethal Devotion EP she’s releasing through Fearless Records. “Burnt by the sun and drowned in the moonlight,” Cenobia cloaks the cut in vocoded trap-raps and soaring vocal melodies.
Submit and let the inky groove swallow you whole.
Concrete Vehicles – “Text Stop”
The second of Vancouver outfit Concrete Vehicles’ summer singles is an epic jam crossing the worlds of noise-scattered post-hardcore and art-rock, an unpredictable and often shaky ride along a wooden rollercoaster track about to pop its most load-bearing rivet.
At its loudest, the song recalls the cyclical dissonance of peak Drive Like Jehu, but Concrete Vehicles offset the aggression while ebbing-and-flowing amid clean channel jazz chords and sun-glistened sax smoothness.
A blossoming punk poet laureate, guitarist Ben Lock fluctuates between rasps and whispers, highlighting moments where mundanity becomes bleakly profound (“I can almost taste the tin in the canned chicken meat”).
Doom Mutual – “Static Planet”
Producer Nick Raskulinecz (Deftones, Rush) just launched his new singles and 7-inch label, Hiss Recordings, with a gauzy-textured, distortion-drenched and dreamily-sung release from heavy shoegazers Doom Mutual.
On “Static Planet” — half of a two-song 7-inch — Daphne Browdy and Davis Gestiehr’s vocal harmonies are in perfect lock-step, each exquisitely synchronized moment landing elementally entwined, reminiscent of god-tier tandems like Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell, or Veruca Salt’s Nina Gordon and Louise Post. And yet, the young group are developing a lush and expansive world unto themselves.
Down – “Blood Oath”
Hold tight, Down are about to bury you in gloom riffs and NOLA-noddin’ references.
“Blood Oath,” the sludge supergroup’s first original death march since 2014, batters slow and hard, Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein’s guitar attack landing like a 10-ton stone gargoyle tossed onto the French Quarter. Philip Anselmo’s daylight-nulling wordplay shouts out various local spots, plus the nefarious sermonizing of the “reaper’s son.”
Creeping. Crushing. Classic Down. We know we won’t forget their “Oath” anytime soon.
God’s Hate – “Won’t Be Disgraced”
“I know your pain is real… But you must never submit.”
God’s Hate press-slammed the Sound & Fury crowd into a state of shock last weekend with their surprise set, the long-running California hardcore band’s first performance in over a year. They doubled-down on awe-inspiring feats a few days later by releasing a new and wholly monstrous three-song EP.
Lead-off track “Won’t Be Disgraced” pig-piles a series of ever-heavying mosh riffs on top of each other before lunging into a bulky back-end two-step. Vocalist Brody King acknowledges life’s many challenges, but posits that you can’t let the darkness take over. It’s tough, but the hope is that you’ll eventually be able to push past the pain (“To climb the mountain, would you ask it to shrink?”).
Haywire – “Interstate Love Affair”
“I don’t care where I’m going if I’m with you.”
The name of Haywire’s newest song — their first single through Roadrunner Records — gives off serious STP vibes, but the Boston band infuse the their road-trip anthem with elements of hardcore, pop-punk, oi and the thousand-hour jolt of energy usually associated with drinking a whole-ass flat of Mountain Dew Code Red on your own.
It’s an amped-up, wide-grinnin’, posi-pit startin’ and band-life-themed paean built for cranking up in the van while you’re speeding from town-to-town with your closest friends.