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 metal, hard rock and hardcore that have been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we've also compiled the songs in a Spotify playlist, which will grow each week.
FEVER 333 - "Supremacy"
Politically charged power trio Fever 333 know no genre boundaries. Their bold, poignant, bouncing new single is part rap-rock, part pop R&B, and it both rages and sways. Thematically, "Supremacy" continues the group's activist efforts with frontman Jason Aalon Butler spitting his words like fire: "See I was raised in the west/Where we stay stressed/Where they lie if they have to/To make an arrest." Never ones to back down, Fever 333 encourage us all to take action.
Year of the Knife - "Virtual Narcotic"
We've been eagerly awaiting new material from Year of the Knife ever since we heard that they'd completed their first proper full-length, Internal Incarceration, with producer (and Converge guitarist) Kurt Ballou — and lead single "Virtual Narcotic" does not disappoint. It's an utterly crushing metallic hardcore anthem lamenting modern society's addiction to social media. Put down your phone and jump in the pit!
Avatar - "God of Sick Dreams"
Avatar's dark "new era" kicks major ass. "God of Sick Dreams," the second single off the Swedish theatrical metal band's forthcoming album, Hunter Gatherer, might hit even harder than the first, May's "Silence in the Age of Apes" — if not musically, then at least lyrically. "This is how it ends/Every night is the same/We awake to get sentenced/And a choice must be made," frontman Johannes Eckerström commands. "Will you succumb to excruciating pain?/Or will you try to escape?/Doesn't matter, you're fucked either way/I am the god of sick dreams."
The Acacia Strain - "One Thousand Painful Stings" Feat. Courtney LaPlante
The Acacia Strain's latest 7-inch is Y, which means that, when added to its predecessors, the whole series spells out DECAY. There's an even larger vision at play here — the band's upcoming eighth full-length album is titled Slow Decay and will include the 7-inch songs plus new cuts. "The whole concept is reality breaking down around us," explained frontman Vincent Bennett. His outlook is reflected in TAS' latest single "One Thousand Painful Stings," a gnarly, atmospheric mind-melter. Featuring beautiful dynamic echoes from Spiritbox's Courtney LaPlante and a long, nasty breakdown, this is more evil than those damn murder hornets.
Gaerea - "To Ain"
Anonymous Portuguese quintet Gaerea better be on your radar if you're a black-metal fan. "To Ain" — the latest taste of their sophomore full-length, Limbo — is violent, bleak and grim yet also cathartic and immersive care of shoegazing digressions à la Deafheaven. Sit back and slip into the void with this 11-minute death trip.
Sharptooth - "The Gray"
"It doesn't help that so many facets of our culture are presented in binaries," Sharptooth vocalist Lauren Kashan says of the group's new single, which celebrates the middle ground so often lost in our divisive, reactionary times. "'You're 'woke' or you're 'canceled.' You have depression, or you don't. You're a man, or you're a woman. You're a Democrat or you're a Republican." According to the band, "The Gray" might be their most important song, and with its urgent barrage of screams and slams, it sounds like it.
