6 best new songs right now: 4/28/23 | Revolver

6 best new songs right now: 4/28/23

HEALTH, Vexed, 200 Stab Wounds and more
Anklebiter press 2023 1600x900, Trang Anh Le
Anklebiter
photograph by Trang Anh Le

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 industrial, death metal, hardcore and more that ha ve been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we've also compiled the songs in an ever-evolving Spotify playlist.

HEALTH - "Hateful"

Put on your best Matrix-rave wear and hit the dance floor — HEALTH are here to make you move. The L.A. industrial-rock trio's latest collaborative single, "Hateful," was co-written with synthwave artist SIERRA and features backing vocals from Street Sects' Leo Ashline, and it's a goth club banger if we've ever heard one. At least until the feedback and screams rip through during the song's climax, reminding listeners that while "Hateful" might be a good bop, HEALTH's roots remain in the noise scene.

VEXED - "Anti-Fetish"

Vexeds new rager "Anti-Fetish" opens with an equally bouncy and brutalizing main riff that sounds like something Wes Borland might have written if he joined a djent band. Shit only gets harder from there, with frontwoman Megan Targett sounding off on "the constant comparisons and ungrounded hate that bands receive" in rap-inflected gutturals that evoke Emmure's Frankie Palmeri. Anti-fetish, pro-Vexed.

200 Stab Wounds - "Fatal Reality"

200 Stab Wounds rose to the top of the death-metal underground with their 2021 album, Slave to the Scalpel, became a touring machine throughout the next year, and then returned in late 2022 with their best song yet, "Masters of Morbidity." Now, they've followed that with what might be their second best. "Fatal Reality" kicks off with an extremely fast, capable jaunt that's different for these Ohio blood-spillers, before ultimately settling into a couple of their signature nasty groove sections. It's only two minutes and 40 seconds long, but it's best served three times in a row. 600 stab wounds. 

Anklebiter - "Pearl"

Last year, Anklebiter made a shirt that said, "You like breakdowns...we like hardcore." That cheeky message is a perfect encapsulation of everything that makes the Northeast straight-edge crew such a bright light in a hardcore landscape that's saturated with crowd-killing mosh bands. Their new song, "Pearl," is a no-bullshit nugget of perky, two-step-inducing hardcore that molds the sound of their Boston heroes (Right Brigade, Mental, etc.) into a fresh new shape. It sounds young, fired up and unafraid to have a good time.

Terminal Nation - "Concrete Hell"/"A Pound of Flesh or a Gallon of Blood"

Technically, there're two songs here, but Terminal Nation are kickass enough to warrant a double-entry. There aren't too many devastating metallic hardcore bands coming out of Arkansas, so this quintet has to summon the power of a whole state on "Concrete Hell" and "A Pound of Flesh or a Gallon Blood," which both appear in the latest Decibel flexi series. On their last several releases, Terminal Nation have proven their hulking conglomerate of death metal and hardcore is not to be messed with, and these tracks are no exception. Utterly crushing.

Ephemeral - "Tower Has Fallen"

Pro tip: if a metallic hardcore band hails from Florida, chances are they fucking rip. Ephemeral are from the Sunshine State, and the first track from their upcoming EP, Tower of Silence, indeed fucking rips. This band strikes the perfect balance between deathcore savagery and classic metalcore stompiness. The fire-breathing vocals sound like they're mere degrees of heat away from singeing your hair, and the clobbering production lets all the collosal instrumental parts breathe without sounding lost in an empty room. "Tower Has Fallen" is right — this thing could take down a 30-floor structure no problem.