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 extreme-metal, trap-metal, synthwave 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.
Meshuggah - "The Abysmal Eye"
Everyone do their best Jens Kidman stinkface, because Meshuggah are fucking back. The Swedish djent pioneers have been of the most reliably kickass bands in extreme-metal for nearly 30 years, and "The Abysmal Eye" is a testament to their seat atop the throne of all things chuggy, down-tuned and technically jarring. The grooves on this beast are as Hulk-smashing as ever, but the high point is Fredrik Thordendal's spiraling guitar solo — a head-spinning cacophony that evokes the image of someone furiously tearing the wires out of a giant mainframe computer.
Greet Death - "Punishment Existence"
Greet Death's music serves as a creative documentation of the anxieties and ideations that that torture the mind in the throes of insomnia. The band's last two entries in their run of superb singles drew more from dark country and slowcore than the shoegazey post-metal of their albums, removing the fuzz's numbing effect and making Logan Gaval and Sam Boyharti's lyrical afflictions even more unguarded. "Punishment Existence" is just as plodding and defeated ("I remember feeling relatively fine/Part of me that died"), but the heavy guitars return for an affecting crescendo; washes of distortion growing thicker and louder beneath Gaval and Boyharti's dueling confessions. They don't miss.
Carpenter Brut - "Imaginary Fire" Feat. Greg Puciato
Greg Puciato is no stranger to synthwave. The former Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist and current Killer Be Killed member also fronts the electro-rock band The Black Queen, and he dipped heavily into moodier, synth-based sounds on his eclectic solo debut, 2020's Child Soldier: Creator of God. Therefore, he and darksynth producer Carpenter Brut make for a great team on the French artist's new groove, "Imaginary Fire," a sleek, catchy banger that'll appeal to fans of Depeche Mode and ††† alike.
Zheani - "Napalm"
Following last year's "Fuck the Hollywood Cult" single — a piercing diatribe about the entertainment industry's sex abuse epidemic — Zheani is back with "Napalm," another song from an upcoming EP called I Hate People on the Internet (she's doesn't mince words). In this one, the Australian artist offers a raging warning to a foe who's "playing with napalm." Those are the word she repeats atop an instrumental that lands somewhere between the emo-pop-metal fusion Bring Me the Horizon have been serving lately and the industrial catharsis of Alice Glass.
Vein.FM - "Fear in Non Fiction"
Ever since their Self-Destruct EP, Vein.fm (FKA Vein) have been one of the heaviest, most sonically confrontational bands in their class. That said, their love for nu-metal and industrial allowed eerie melodies to seep through on their 2020 mixtape, Old Data in a New Machine, Vol. 1, and on the second single from their next record, "Fear in Non Fiction," they go so far as to let Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly belt some of his post-hardcore cleans. The band's chaotic-core blasts are still intact, but Rickly's brief reprieve makes them hit even harder.
Greyhaven - "Foreign Anchor"
Earlier this week, Greyhaven frontman Brent Mills told us that the Dillinger Escape Plan's 2013 opus, One of Us is the Killer, was one of five albums that made him — particularly Greg Puciato's smoky croons on its sludgy, anthemic title-track. That specific reference makes a lot of sense, because Mills' husky, sweat-pouring cleans on Greyhaven's new ripper "Foreign Anchor" totally channel that era of Dillinger — and in the best way possible. The skronkiness of the verses is a return to heavy-as-fuck form after the band's melodic first single from This Bright and Beautiful World, and when that chorus hits . . . hoo boy.
