Here at Revolver, we're always on the hunt for great new music — indeed, it's a big part of our jobs. With that in mind, here are the tracks released this week in metal, hard rock, hardcore and beyond that have been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we've also compiled the songs in a Spotify playlist, below, which will grow each week.
Portrayal of Guilt - "Your War"
Whether you want to call them screamo or hardcore or whatever the fuck, Portrayal of Guilt is a punk band above all else. "Your War" is their latest crusher, showing them breaking up the usual flow of their output with off-kilter rhythms and exceptionally unhinged vocal work. Full of Hell frontman Dylan Walker makes an assist here, matching PoG's Matt King with equally maddened yowling that marches the song into a coffin made of noise.
Cult Leader - "To: Achlys"
Normally spastic and blasting post-hardcore crew Cult Leader live up to their name on the supernaturally soothing ode to the pale goddess of misery on their latest single, "To: Achlys." Like a bleak, bellowing murder ballad constructed on a bed of pummeling leaden percussion, the track's circling slow dance whips the listener into a state of hypnotic worship. Carving a seductive path to the exaltation reached through one's submission to gloom, "To: Achlys" is a stunning tribute to the dark divinity within us all.
Outer Heaven - "What Lies Beneath"
Two-minutes death-grind slammer "What Lies Beneath" doesn't give so much as a one-second warning before desolving into a series of unrelenting blast beats and punishing, sepulchral vocals. Built to brutalize without apology, the track's ruthless extremity ensures that Outer Heaven stand strong among the throes of bands attempting to reach new depths of barbaric heft. Give it a spin, and get knocked on your ass before you know what hit you.
High on Fire - "Steps of the Ziggurat/House of Enil"
By now, you should be aware of the psychedelic head trip that is Matt Pike's musical output, whether with Sleep or High on Fire. The latter band's newest album Electric Messiah dropped today, and its nine-minute second track "Steps of the Ziggurat/House of Enil" is a particularly vivid and epic glimpse into the esoteric obsessions rattling around inside Pike's brain. A two-part rock opera based on Sumerian creation myths, the opus is full of majestic moments that always feel like part of one great masterminded structure, one that builds to a charging and thoroughly satisfying finish.
Miserable - "Loverboy"
King Woman singer Kristina Esfandiari continues to push her project Miserable into strange new territories. Its latest single "Loverboy" sounds like alternate-reality Nineties rock, like if Marilyn Manson's Portrait of an American Family lineup made themselves up in the model of My Bloody Valentine, not Alice Cooper. Her voice is a spectral presence on the song, alternating its focus between creating atmosphere and hooks, and sometimes doing both at once.
Alkymist - "Djinn"
Young Danish doom quartet Alkymist may have only formed in 2016, but on their just-released self-titled debut full-length, they stomp and crawl like million-year-old carnivorous dinosaurs out of the primordial muck. On "Djinn," the album's second track, they channel Crowbar at their sludgiest and Celtic Frost at their frostiest, slowly drilling their way through sedimentary layers toward hell by way of a roiling main riff and cement-mixer howls.
