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 alt-metal, deathcore, industrial 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.
Author & Punisher – “Titanis” feat. Kuntari
To preview their upcoming Nocturnal Birding LP, Author & Punisher have sawed out a serious piece of industrialized terror-doom dubbed “Titanis.”
Though the track beefs up founding member Tristan Shone’s elementally raw, custom-electronics-crafted approach with the powerfully droning tones of Doug Sabolick (Ecstatic Vision, A Life Once Lost), it also incorporates intense horn and percussion treatments from Indonesian outfit Kuntari.
Like the deep-tissue massages presented in the music video, this one’ll grind itself right into you.
BABYMETAL – “My Queen” feat. Spiritbox
On a certain level, the members of BABYMETAL and Spiritbox are but meager pawns in the game of life — or so suggest the somewhat Seventh Seal-styled, omniscient chess-lords manipulating the playing board in the striking video for METAL FORTH single “My Queen.”
Then again, BABYMETAL are popping and locking themselves through some god-tier dance moves above the new tune’s bass-warped clap beat. Fellow heavy-music royal Courtney LaPlante, meanwhile, heads into the more profoundly scraped-and-djented bridge with commanding, full-scream fury.
Paraphrasing what SU-METAL sings in the sparkled chorus, “My Queen” makes for a pretty dazzling collaborative effort.
Bad Omens – “Specter”
It’s been a long wait, but a new Bad Omens song has finally materialized for the faithful, and fittingly enough, the shivers-inducing number is titled “Specter.”
Initially teased through a series of eerie clips starring Sons of Anarchy actor Ryan Hurst and a child in a ghost costume, “Specter” is Bad Omens at their most haunting. Frontman Noah Sebastian’s vocals are both smooth and cutting as he asks, “Do you feel love?” and the soundscape behind him packs a mix of heavy riffage and electronic flourishes, creating an immersive atmosphere that’s matched in scope by the song’s cinematic music video.
It’s everything fans of the group’s breakthrough album, THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND, could have wished for in a new song — and hopefully an omen of even bigger things to come.
Deftones – “milk of the madonna”
Rather than the milk in the title, vocalist Chino Moreno instead soaks private music’s second single with lyrical allusions to crashing waves, ceremonial wine and a street flooded with blood.
His bandmates match the apocalyptic imagery with vivid instrumentation. Abe Cunningham pounds into an air-pushing mid-tempo groove and Stephen Carpenter cloud-glides his way through effects-heavy guitar work — music that might be powerful enough to kick off a series of natural disasters in its own right.
Certainly, listening to this latest banger, many fans will feel — as Moreno says of himself in the chorus — like they’re “on fire.”
Despised Icon – “Over My Dead Body” feat. Matt Honeycutt
“Trust the process/Pain is progress.”
Despised Icon are iron-willed and bloody-knuckled across “Over My Dead Body,” the Quebecois deathcore greats’ first new song in six years.
The riffs? Ignorantly squealy. The double-kick? Mercury-footed and brutal as fuck. And beyond the life-threatening barks and onomatopoeically intense vocalizations of Alex Erian and Steve Marois, the track also has Kublai Khan TX’s Matt Honeycutt popping by to gnarl through a thick-necked guest verse.
Let the dead bodies hit the floor.
Ousted – “Self hate for people who love self hate”
As you may gather from the title of Ousted’s new single — the first preview of their forthcoming How Do You Cope? EP — the Maryland-made hardcore act are cycling through themes of self-loathing, doubt, anxiety and uncertainty (“This cloud above me is getting darker/The mask I’m wearing is getting tighter”).
But coming off their promising 2024 demo, the band — which boasts veterans of Pulling Teeth, Ruiner and more — are also hammering through the aching, melancholy-chorded arrangement with unshakeable confidence in their heavy craft.
It’s a song tailor-made for two-stepping across the floor with a wistful, reflective tear in your eye. And we love it.