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 death metal, nu-gaze, active rock 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.
Better Lovers – “Deliver Us From Life”
Better Lovers’ debut album, Highly Irresponsible, is finally here, and it’s just as frenzied as we imagined, coming from a supergroup featuring current and former members of Every Time I Die, Dillinger Escape Plan and Fit for an Autopsy. That said, “Deliver Us From Life” is a mid-album standout that hits a totally different vibe.
Here, the Lovers lean into a melancholy sludge that hangs somewhere between early-Nineties Ozzy and the godhead gloom of Alice in Chains. It’s an eerily iridescent creeper that features some of the most classically-staggering solos the band have hit yet.
Slowing the general pace didn’t exactly make this a chill moment on the record, but it is supremely chills-inducing.
Cradle of Filth – “Malignant Perfection”
Cradle of Filth dubbed their latest single — the U.K. symphonic-metal greats’ first new music in three years — “the perfect musical accompaniment to the spirit of the witching season,” and we’ve got to agree.
With All Hallows Eve just around the corner, there may be no better way to celebrate the seasonal chill and the supernatural forces around us than with Dani Filth’s unmistakably ghoulish shriek, gothic-gloomy extremity and blast beats that’ll wake the dead.
Cradle of Filth freed their inner demons with their latest death-metal danse macabre, and we’re gladly reveling in the ghoulish aftermath.
Amira Elfeky – “Will You Love Me When I’m Dead”
There’s a funny lil’ psych-out moment right at the top of Amira Elfeky’s new standalone single. The clean-driven guitar melody sounds downright jubilant, the kind of thing you might hear at start of some WB teen drama. But then the beat drops and the tune goes into a much darker, emotionally-drained direction.
Lyrically, Elfeky’s latest nu-gaze offering has the singer pondering her place in someone’s life and legacy, and whether she’s putting too much into a one-sided relationship (“Every bone I break for you… will never be enough”). Despite the dejection, the singer sounds anything but deflated. Spiritually downhearted, but sonically massive.
MÚR – “Frelsari”
There’s an enigmatically foreboding energy coursing throughout Icelandic death force MÚR new “Frelsari” single, the second taste of the band’s forthcoming self-titled debut album.
Driven by a tense but groovy, and occasionally progressively-bounced beat, the song builds up pressure like a magma-overloaded volcano. When MÚR finally erupt into an infectiously bleak-melodied chorus, the vibe is darker than the famous ebony sands of Iceland’s southern coastal beachscapes. And then an unpredictable, avant-jazz-metal solo lands like a force of nature.
It’s an impressive and oppressive preview of where the group may take us yet.
Sleep Theory – “Paralyzed”
Sleep Theory have been one of the bands to watch over the past year, and the Memphis, Tennessee, quartet keep their winning streak going with their latest single, “Paralyzed.”
The riffs hit a little harder this time around, with guitarist Daniel Pruitt and bassist Paolo Vergara leveling their instruments with percussively fretboard-pounding precision. Pruitt is also pushing his screams more than ever before, but that acts as a perfect counterbalance to the silky melodies lead vocalist Cullen Moore brings to the otherwise all-power rock track.
Trauma Ray – “Chameleon”
It’s safe to say that Trauma Ray’s take on heavy-riffed, distortion-frazzled post-hardcore takes influence from master tone-exploders like Deftones and Hum. You could argue that, in some ways, the title to the Fort Worth, Texas unit’s new album, Chameleon, could be a cheeky way of acknowledging exactly this.
But while certainly familiar-sounding, the chunkily chromatic, drop-tuned moments of the LP’s title cut ground us into an undeniably rock-solid groove — even as vocalist Uri Avila’s cloud-gazing, echo-blown and outright ambient falsetto raises the piece towards a more ethereal plain.