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 thrash, metalcore, deathcore 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.
Megadeth - "We'll Be Back"
Dave Mustaine is setting the bar for how good a thrash band can sound when their ringleader reaches his sixties. "We'll Be Back," the first taste of Megadeth's first album in six years, is a fucking ripper that can stand alongside almost anything his band has churned out over the last three decades. The energy is at 11, the riffs have tons of meat on their bones, a post-throat cancer Mustaine sounds great, and the man can still solo like it's 1993. "We'll Be Back"? No, they are.
Spiritbox - "Rotoscope"
Some Vegas casino should start taking bets on what Spiritbox will sound like on any given release — it'd be a risky wager. On "Rotoscope," the Canuck alt-metal trio side-step everything they did on last year's Eternal Blue and give industrial-metal a go. Mechnical blasts of shrapnel-inflected guitars crank beneath Courtney LaPlante's menthol-cool vocals, and every instrument explodes into overdrive when her ferocious screams set her tranquility on fire. New sound, same ol' slyly catchy, "oh shit that's heavy" Spiritbox.
Ozzy Osbourne - "Patient Number 9"
All these years later, and Ozzy can still give us something to chant to. The Prince of Darkness is of course the star of the show on "Patient Number 9," the title track from his lucky 13th album, and Ozzy belts the hook of this mid-tempo asylum anthem with a roof-raising gusto. That said, the virtuosic Jeff Beck makes a show-stopping appearance when he takes the savory main riff for a couple string-scrambling spins up and down the fretboard. Listen and learn, young bucks.
Lorna Shore - "Into the Earth"
Sure, there are other deathcore bands with more mathematic riffs and more precise songwriting than Lorna Shore, but at this moment, no other band summons evil on a track the way they do. The New Jersey crew plunge "Into the Earth" and dredge up the wicked sins of mankind past on their latest single, crafting buried horrors into fanciful black-metal ambiance and possessing their vocalist with the capacity to sound like Lucifer on a day when he's suffering from a bad cold — spewing garbled venom with a voice that gives Smiegel a run for his money. Then the breakdown hits. Thwack.
Contention - "Inflict My Will"
Some of the best metallic hardcore of the last 10 years has come out of Florida, and Contention's new Summer Offensive EP sits at the top of that pile. Opener "Inflict My Will" is steeped in the stiff, militant metalcore sound of turn-of-the-century bands like All Out War, 100 Demons and Indecision (they cover "Blindfold" on this project), which is to say the song has extremely tight guitarwork, a sturdy drumbeat, needly leads and a vocalist who brings a tremendous amount of fiery energy without going totally apeshit. This is superb metalcore.
Nothing More - "Spirits"
Nothing More do a little bit of everything on "Spirits," and in a way that's just challenging enough to keep your ear piqued the whole time while also remaining extremely fucking catchy. The elastic groove is nu-metal with a djent sense of off-kilter urgency, and singer Jonny Hawkins' vocals have the rising-and-falling dynamics of TOOL frontman Maynard James Keenan. The hook is extraordinarily singable, but all the instrumentation feels a little eerie, obscure and atmospheric. It's a vibe.
