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 sludge-metal, metalcore, hardcore 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.
High on Fire - "Burning Down"
The historically prolific High on Fire were uncharacteristically quiet in recent times, going six long years without dropping a new album. But within the first minute of "Burning Down," the sludge-metal greats more than make up for lost time.
The slow-building riff is gnarsty. The bassline oozes like a chemical spill. And Matt Pike sounds like an angry yeti caught in a screaming match with the moon, which is exactly how any fan would want Pike to sound on a new HOF song.
Kittie - "Eyes Wide Open"
Kittie were lumped in with the nu-metal movement back in the late Nineties, mostly because of how they dressed. However, they've always been a hell of a lot heavier than Limp Bizkit, and on their first song in a 13 years, they sound absolutely fucking ferocious.
Morgan Lander's first line — "Ascend the mountain, the edge of sanity" — hits like a volcanic eruption, pouring over the meaty guitar riff and smoldering everything in its path. Yep, Kittie are back — now get the fuck out their way.
Kharma - "Clip Your Wings"
Chicago's Kharma have been one of Midwest hardcore's best-kept secrets in recent years. The band crush it live, and fans go the fuck off accordingly. But with their long-awaited new album due out on Flatspot Records later this spring, their profile's about to raise significantly.
"Clip Your Wings" demonstrates their wide appeal. Their frontman has the voice of a human tornado, a distinctly raspy register that sounds like it could yank a house out of its foundation and into his orbit. The surrounding instrumentation is bleak, concussive, and unforgivingly heavy.
Wristmeetrazor - "Trepanation"
From their all-one-word-no-spaces band name and 2001-ass look, to the sound they unleash on "Trepanation," Wristmeerazor have a distinct fondness for classic Trustkill Records bands. The era when Eighteen Visions, Bleeding Through and Poison the Well ruled metalcore.
The new material they've been teasing out at recent live shows has an old-school Atreyu vibe, but this single is heavier and skronkier than that, with panic-stricken riffage, bone-snapping drum hits and vocals that range from sinister mutters to throaty screeches.
My Favourite Nemesis - "We Annihilate"
Finland's My Favourite Nemesis make metalcore. Huge, epic, crushing metalcore. But they've got a leg-up on other bands in this milieu for two reasons.
One, metalcore clean vocalists almost never have the soaring range of clean singer Sanna Solanterä, whose tremendous belt packs a huge punch on "We Annihilate." Second, the shredding. Goddamn, the guitarist in this band just tears up the fretboard, making this much more than a standard-issue stew of meat-and-potatoes breakdowns.
Fever 333 - "Ready Rock"
Fever 333 frontman Jason Aalon Butler notably used to front letlive., a 2010s-era post-hardcore band whose sound was routinely compared to their unabashed heroes in Glassjaw. Fever has a different vibe than letlive., but their new single "Ready Rock" features co-production from Glassjaw's Justin Beck, and that feels like a full-circle moment.
Butler's in fine form here, leaping in and out of rhythmic pockets with a tightrope walker's precision, and thrusting between frenetic rap flows and convulsive hardcore screams. The guitarwork is what brings it all together, though, a lightsaber of piercing distortion that serves as the perfect counterbalance to Butler's wild shouts.
