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.
GosT - "Wrapped in Wax"
GosT's infectious synth output has always leaned much darker than the rest of the pack, but with "Wrapped in Wax" and its revamped aesthetics, the Texas-based project has gone fully blackened. Buzzing and chilly, more tundra soundscape than club banger, the track shows a depressive maturity that spits in the face of nostalgia-wave and creates new sinister pathways to the dance floor.
Slipknot - "Birth of the Cruel"
"Unsainted" was the poppy radio single to draw in the masses; "Solway Firth," the far-beyond-brutal cut for the diehard mosh-pit Maggots. "Birth of the Cruel" sits somewhere in-between, catchy in an Alice in Chainsesque kinda way courtesy of Corey Taylor's grungy croon, but still bristling with metallic savagery. Perhaps most brazen of all, however, is the song's full embrace — and weaponization — of nu-metal's much derided DJ scratching, a middle-finger-throwing reclamation of one of the 'Knot's earliest defining sounds.
Tool - "Fear Inoculum"
The biggest song of the week, or the biggest song of the decade? After 13 long years full of teases, excuses, disinformation, disagreements and hype, Tool finally dropped their first proper, studio-recorded, final-product new song, and it's epic to say the least. 10-plus minutes of slow-burning, transcendent, trance-inducing prog metal meditating on the loss of fear through age and experience, it's a composition to listen to on repeat, digesting, dissecting, absorbing and eagerly waiting for more.
Gatecreeper - "Boiled Over"
Gatecreeper are masters of enormous, sludgy death riffs and "Boiled Over" is one of the meanest and filthiest cuts they've spewn out to date. Its measured pace and putrid delivery bode well for their coming full-length Deserted, sure to deliver more of the Sonoran brutality we've come to expect and love from the Arizona barbarians.
Cloak - "Tempter's Call"
There's something timelessly endearing about good old fashioned galloping black 'n' roll, and Cloak's latest leather-clad single "Tempter's Call" is an ideal specimen of that genre and a testament to its ability to locate the intersection between evil and pure fun. Put it on and try to stop yourself from headbanging to the triumphant, fist-pumping riffs.
Renounced - "In a Years Turning"
Hearkening back to a purer time in metalcore, U.K. act Renounced expertly combine the genre's dueling forces of heaviness and serenity in fine form on their latest single "In a Years Turning." There's even a touch of Deafheavenesque shoegaze filtering through the punchy riffing, with plenty of death-metal guitar squealing and guttural roars to ensure the hefty weight of these throaty newcomers doesn't get bogged down in any saccharine nonsense.
