Here at Revolver, we pride ourselves in living on the cutting edge of heavy music, from metal and hardcore to industrial and hip-hop, and we try to keep you on the front line, too, by giving you a deep look at the innovative noisemakers poised to shape the sound and the scene. To that end, we've rounded up a handful of musicians who, we think, are on the rise across several different genres. From From "bimbocore" to body-bagging death metal, here are five artists you'll want to get on now.
BRAT
RIYL Carcass, Pig Destroyer, Cattle Decapitation
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Don't let the dollhouse imagery fool you, BRAT's music is for smashing shit. The New Orleans foursome are fond of bright-pink color palettes and open Britney Spears worship, but their songs are nasty fucking grind bangers that could easily send a room into a frenzy of fists. On "Human Offense," for example, they wield walls of feedback that build suspense before a bludgeoning breakdown and ferocious screams by frontwoman Liz Selfish that crush the whole thing to smithereens. Glorious.
QUOTE "As time has gone on and we've adopted this feminine, sort of anti-traditional aesthetic, we often hear from people that they've never felt more welcome or invited at a metal show, and I really love that," says guitarist-vocalist Brenner Moate. "We just want everyone to feel like they can come to one of our shows and let loose. Juxtaposing Britney Spears or Backstreet Boys with heavy riffs seems like it has a way of making people feel like they can be themselves."
Deadbody
RIYL Death, Suffocation, Nails
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Deadbody notably feature both Taylor and Colin Young, modern hardcore's prolific brothers whose combined resumes include Nails, God's Hate, Twitching Tongues, Disgrace and more. If you've liked anything they've ever touched, Deadbody's fresh debut,The Requiem, is worth a spin, but be warned: This is their most technical feat yet. Twisted, prog-curious death-grind that's rooted in East Coast extreme music's cold, uncompromising adventurism.
QUOTE "My brother and I have been in a plethora of bands together for almost 15 years, but we've never co-fronted a band," Taylor says. "However, our voices sound super similar so it's almost like Deadbody has one singer. When I was in high school, I learned to blast beat from listening to Dave Witte play. Human Remains, Discordance Axis, Burnt by the Sun, East West Blast Test and so on, but I never had the chops to play guitar like those bands until now. So it's kind of a longtime wish fulfilled and that's the root of the band's influences."
Hoaxed
RIYL Ghost, Chelsea Wolfe, Killing Joke
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE Hoaxed just put out an album on Relapse Records, but don't expect to hear any blast beats or harsh screams on Two Shadows. This Portland duo of singer-guitarist Kat Keo and drummer Kim Coffe play gothy, witchy post-punk with a heavy-metal undergirding. Thrumming, hard-hitting drumming and big, open doom chords are channeled through a luminous guitar effects and sinfully melodic hooks, sung breathily but with a twinge of garage-rock bite. Light a candle and let 'er rip.
QUOTE "We want to invite listeners on a journey through darkness and mystery," the band say of their approach. "The songs of Two Shadows are a collection of vignettes; a tale of cautionary tales. Our goal was to balance the heaviness and theatricality of our music. Taking our music seriously, while not taking ourselves too seriously. To have fun but also have depth. We wanted to be ourselves."
Jivebomb
RIYL Negative Approach, SS Decontrol, GEL
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE While these Baltimore denizens hail from one of the hottest hardcore scenes in the world, Jivebomb's sound doesn't resemble the bouncy, New York-ian style of their local peers in Turnstile and End It. Instead, the Flatspot Records signees (who only formed a year ago) take queues from contemporaries like Gel and Spy — blown-out, stompy, snaggle-toothed American hardcore that's heavier than basement punk but hard enough for the knuckle-draggers to get down with.
QUOTE "Punk is inherently political, which a lot of Jivebomb songs are, though less so on Primitive Desires," says vocalist Kat. "The EP is pretty introspective to a selfish and spiteful degree, almost to a fault. I think everyone experiences inner turmoil but not everyone seeks to look inward — [in turn] living with no more self-insight than what they began with. Some of these songs are me working that out."
Squint
RIYL Title Fight, Rites of Spring, Drug Church
WHY YOU SHOULD CARE For the last decade or so, hardcore, grunge and emo bands have been finding creative ways to reinterpret the bands who were making that music in the early Nineties. By the end of 2022, Squint will have released two great EPs that prove there's still untapped potential in that milieu. Drawing from post-hardcore pioneers like Turning Point and Supertouch, and then blending that with the wall-of-sound grunge of Dinosaur Jr. and Sugar, Squint's music is as urgent as it is swooshing.
QUOTE "It feels like we laid the foundation with Feel It and now it's just time to build on top of that," frontman Brennen Wilkinson says of how Squint's sound evolved on their new EP, Wash Away. "We definitely tried to bring in more of our grungy, Nineties influences without losing our sound — or Squintensity — and I'm very proud of the final product."
