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 nu-metal, hardcore, weirdo pop 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.
Korn - "Forgotten"
Jonathan Davis has spent the better part of 30 years excavating his darkest traumas for all to see, but on "Forgotten," he pleads that his listeners, "Don't feel bad for me/Don't feel sad for me." While previous Requiem single, "Start the Healing," examined the tension between the grueling salvation of self-help and the comforting familiarity of self-destruction, Davis takes to rationalizing the latter ("I'm broken faulted/And that just better for me") on this one amid the tornado-like fury of a thrashing groove.
Heriot - "Coalescence"
Again and again, song after song, Heriot continue to make music that can't be effectively described in anything less than over-the-top hyperbole. The latest from the U.K. 'core savants has bass that rumbles like a 2,000 cc motorcycle engine blasting through Rock Am Ring monitors. The guitar textures sound like standing five feet from an idling helicopter while a swarm of locusts blankets the air for a mile in every direciton. The apocalyptic cocphony pulls away for brief respites of eerie industrial cooing, only to come back sounding even louder and more physically assailing.
Poppy - "3.14"
Poppy's music has always teetered on the border of "is she trolling?" absurdity and outré ingenuity, and the fact that she's never committed to just one side is what makes her such a compelling figure. After releasing her most lyrically unguarded and musically straightforward record yet, last year's Flux, she's swerving back to nonsense land with a banging loosie about her cat that sounds like Rammstein in the booth with the late 2010s electronic-pop visionary Sophie. Is the line, "He's so fierce and fancy/Sophisticated pussy," a perverted double entendre or a pure expression of admiration toward her furry friend? Not knowing is part of the fun.
Soul Glo - "Jump!! (Or Get Jumped!!!)((by the future))"
The title of Soul Glo's new song is near-impossible to recite back after just one glance, and their music has a similarly disorienting quality. Frontman Pierce Jordan completely disobeys the conventional number of syllables per measure, his voice zipping wildly atop the spastic rhythms like a skater weaving rapidly through traffic — an act that appears reckless to an outsider, and would be a death ticket for anyone without the instincts and tenacity of the stuntperson in question. In Jordan's case, he's got 800 words to get in across three-and-a-half minutes of breakneck hardcore punk, and he's gonna make it happen. It's not up for debate.
Underoath - "We're All Gonna Die"
Underoath aren't mincing words on Voyeurist, the rawest and most confrontational album they've made since their coveted run in the mid-2000s. "Hey we're all gonna die, what difference does it make/Don't pray for me and my friends/I think you're fucking fake," Spencer Chamberlain bellows with a gnashing scream-sing, championing the school of nihilism that uses our inevitable demise to ass-kick ourselves into enjoying the time we do have. We all know they can write hooks, but the band are at their best when their philosophical probings are down in the noisy metalcore muck.
Haunted Shores - "Hellfire"
If Periphy's djentrified prog-metal is either too heady and/or too melodically docile for your roughshod sensibilities, then allow yourself to wash upon the Haunted Shores. After a seven-year gap, Periphery guitarists Misha Mansoor and Mark Holcomb are reigniting their instrumental side-project to whip up more wickedly spicy stir-fries of tech-death and black-metal. "Hellfire" has no clean vocals, no shiny leads and no room for your ears to breathe — just straight-up down-tuned devastation.
