6 Best New Songs Right Now: 5/6/22 | Revolver

6 Best New Songs Right Now: 5/6/22

Candy, Stray From the Path, Druids and more
Candy press 2022 1600x900, Ian Hurdle and Mason Mercer
Candy
photograph by Ian Hurdle and Mason Mercer

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 hardcore, trap-metal, stoner-metal 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.

Candy - "Human Condition Above Human Opinion"

Candy dropped two of the best hardcore projects of 2017 and 2018, signed to Relapse in 2019, and then disappeared. Now they've re-emerged in an even more fucked-up world and with an even more doom-imbued sound to meet the moment. "Human Condition Above Human Opinion" straps their Integrity-influenced hardcore thrust with dirty death-metal guitar tones and ups the groove in a big way, bringing to mind I Am King-era Code Orange with noisier, more reverberating production. This is monstrous music. 

Jeris Johnson x ZillaKami - "RAINING BLOOD"

The caps-locked parlance of the Spotify era is a crucial detail for this iteration of "RAINING BLOOD." Not a cover of Slayer's masterpiece, but a trap-metal remix with booming 808s and strobing synth blips. Lil Jon flipped "Raining Blood" into a trap banger in 2004, but Jeris Johnson and his featured guest, City Morgue maverick ZillaKami, are steeped in the world of metal, making their version less a case of clever sampling and more so an inspired remake. 

Druids - "Hide"

Druids' new song "Hide," from their forthcoming LP Shadow Work, is stoner metal that actually gets up off the couch. The psychedelic, vaguely eastern guitar licks swirl together like one of those fractal videos on YouTube, and there's plenty of open space in the mix to create a floaty, trancey effect. That said, the cutting drive has a real urgency to it, like Blood Mountain-era Mastodon but with the tuneful vocals of Baroness. 

Stray From the Path - "III"

Stray From the Path understand that now is not a time for fence-walking on political issues. Especially when it comes to the United States' unrelentingly violent police state, it's "fuck 12" or bust — "and if you fly that blue flag, then fuck you, too," Drew York clarifies on their unabashedly forthright anti-cop song, "III." The Long Island hardcore band have always evoked their idols in Rage Against the Machine, and part of what makes "III" so poignant is that Stray are singing about the same societal epidemics today as Rage were 30 years ago — and nothing's changed. "It was always broken there's nothing to fix, Fuck this." 

Cabal - "Magno Interitus" Feat. Joe Badolato

Cabal make deathcore that sounds like it's trumpeting in the end times. Buildings crumbling, gaping holes forming in the earth's crust and the Danish band's mighty breakdowns chugging along in perfect time. "Magno Interitus" has a wrathful vocal feature from Fit For an Autopsy screamer Joe Badolato, as well as guitar leads that squeak like slippery windshield wipers and a splash of gooey trance synth that harkens back to the late 2000s. 

Bastions - "Acres of Love"

In the early 2010s, there was suddenly an influx of emotional hardcore bands who populated the international scene — Defeater, Touché Amoré, Title Fight and more. Bastions were a band doing that sound in the U.K., and after an 11-year gap since their 2011 debut, they've returned with a new album and a single called "Acres of Love." Compared to the screamo influence on their debut, this song has more of a Dischord Records plod to it, recalling the lurching tempo of groups like Lungfish and Fugazi, but with a distinctly modern level of heaviness.