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.
Chamber - "Replacing Every Weakness"
Chamber recently announced their signing to the formidable Pure Noise Records, and they're making their introduction with the chaotic new "Replacing Every Weakness." The song shows the band taking a mathier approach to their metalcore, full of thrilling shifting riffs and unexpected moments. They keep at a rapid-fire pace throughout, leading a bunch of disparate parts to one unified, perfectly crushing, breakdown.
Killswitch Engage - "I Am Broken Too"
Killswitch Engage have an arsenal of absolutely pummeling heavy jams, but arguably their greatest strength comes in how they write heartfelt pipe-bombs. "I Am Broken Too" is a counterpoint to their previous Atonement single "Unleashed," showing the band at a slower pace, but offering up a ton of emotion in Jesse Leach's raw performance. The song doesn't stick around for longer than it needs to, and combines riffs, screams and singing for maximum heart-wrenching effect.
Petbrick - "Horse"
Iggor Cavalera (Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy) may have jokingly referred to his new project Petbrick as an outlet for making "horrible noise," but the industrial swell and dystopian zest of their horrifying debut track "Horse" ticks off all the boxes for how to make something ugly sound so right. Anxious, driving drums and challenging segments of haunting squeals are more catchy than they have any right to be, and the finished product is a grand entry into modern industrial metal's oeuvre.
Rebel Wizard - "Hair, Wet Soil, Metallic Taste"
Weirdo one-man metal peddler Rebel Wizard dropped a surprise EP today, July 19th, and its opening track's acrid, evil tones are a perfect channel through which to continue the project's trajectory in the "new wave of negative metal." "Hair, Wet Soil, Metallic Taste" is a harsh, grating eardrum-buster built on bones of black metal with a pungent thrash heart, and it's deeply comforting to know there are still lo-fi rebels out there delivering the nasty goods when we need them.
Chelsea Wolfe - "American Darkness"
For the follow-up to her crushing, experimental 2017 full-length Hiss Spin, Chelsea Wolfe decamped to the NorCal woods to explore a more nuanced, vulnerable style of dark acoustic expression. This week she released the second single from those Birth of Violence sessions, "American Darkness." The winding five-minute epic has her reflecting on a relationship being driven into disrepair as a very subtle touch of synthesizer dots every moment leading up to the song's beautiful climax.
Sanction - "Paralysis"
Furthering the crusade of nu-flavored hardcore led by acts like Vein and Turnstile, Sanction have brought an equally sinister entry with their latest single "Paralysis." Viscerally disturbing with a throwback piccolo snare sound that will tug at the heartstrings of anyone born before 1994, the Pure Noise Records group really gain footing with their lumbering breakdowns and waste no time in wrapping things up before the fury becomes a slog.
