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.
Chaotic fury and unrestrained intensity mark the highlights and draw of U.K. metallic hardcore outfit Ithaca. Their newest offering, "Language Of Injury," is a master class in melding evocative, stirring clean vocals with filthy, enraged growls, and how those two styles collide atop a terse flow of layered riffs and staccato drumming. Pained lyrics speak to harsh betrayal and the irrevocable numbness it can leave on its recipient; the dual singing acts as a despondent call and response of two broken people immersed in irreparable damage.
Back in the 2000s, My Chemical Romance might have gotten lumped in with the dregs of brain-dead mall-emo, but in truth they towered over most of their peers in their ability to write the fuck out of a song. Years after the band's demise, that knack for effective songwriting hasn't left the group's erstwhile frontman Gerard Way, as he displays with "Baby You're a Haunted House." The single eschews any ties to MCR's material or Way's other solo work, instead taking a heavy, hooky power-pop direction. The guitar work is distorted to hell, and that singing is bound to get stuck in your brain until the end of time. A new Halloween classic is born.
No matter what experimentation Bring Me the Horizon may indulge in, heavy rock music will always be at the core of the U.K.group's DNA. On their newest song "Wonderful Life," they take that heaviness in a different direction, embracing a groove-metal approach versus the metalcore trajectory of their past. The riff is bouncy and crushing, even when modified by an injection of electronics, while singer Oli Sykes delivers a massive hook on its chorus and goes sardonically stream of consciousness on his verses. Adding a black-metal cherry on top, Cradle of Filth singer Dani Filth shows up for a genuinely bizarre near-whispered guest spot, delivering one of the funniest vocals in his entire career.
After a six-year hiatus, shoegaze–inflected black-metal crew Chrome Waves are back with more emotionally wrought opulence on "Burdened." The string-laden intro, harsh vocals mingling with weightless harmonies, and grandiose composition inject fresh life into the frequently stale atmospheric realm while maintaining unpretentious production quality and a dedication to the blackgaze tradition. A late track drum break builds quiet intensity, culminating in an explosively stirring climax before the eight-minute song fizzles into silence.
Without the Danzig croon and the chainsaw guitars, Orange Hell's reimagining of "Hybrid Moments" mutates the song from horror punk to serene lullaby. The lilting female vocals mixed with the shoegazing instrumentation highlights the actual genius behind the work of the Misfits — these songs were not only built to last, but also are shrouded pieces of true pop ingenuity.
Opening with the iconic snare intro from the 20th Century Fox theme, NYC punk favorites Warthog immediately launch into a teeth-clenching d-beat on "Corroded," one that feels squarely out of the Absolut Country of Sweden–era of Anti-Cimex, but with the speed cranked up 20 percent. Vocals are similarly vile and nihilistic, too, like a wraith barking an end-times message:
I smell the end just years away
creeping in I can feel it
in my dreams visions of war
nothing settled no one wins
"Corroded" is a nasty and unrelenting bit of punk fury from one of the U.S.'s greatest modern punk bands, who nod to everything from Thin Lizzy to Sodom to Celtic Frost over the course of the rest of their stellar new self-titled EP.
