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, 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.
Witchery - "Dry Bones"
Well, that was fast: less than a year after dropping their In His Infernal Majesty LP, Swedish blackened-thrashers Witchery are back with another new album, I Am Legion. Upon first listen, the 11-track effort doesn't sound all that different from its predecessor; the band's still out for blood, carving a warpath with their stabbing riffs and unpredictable song structures. But while most of the album finds Witchery launching full-frontal assaults, "Dry Bones" sneaks up on the listener from behind with a haunting, dreamlike intro that lands somewhere between dreadful dirge and devil's lullaby. There's no rest for the wicked, so there's no rest for Witchery — and we're totally cool with that.
Corrosion of Conformity - "Cast the First Stone"
Rejoice, sludge-heads: Pepper Keenan has returned to the studio with C.O.C., and dutifully raised hell. Corrosion of Conformity's first song with the Down co-founder in over a decade, "Cast the First Stone" offers an explosive reminder of why we came to love the North Carolina crew in the first place — the Thin Lizzy-esque mischief, the gnarled Americana and, of course, plenty of brazen badassery.
Tombs - "Kiss of Steel" (Samhain cover)
The companion album to the xXx Fanzine re-release compilation, xXx Fanzine (1983-1988) Hardcore & Punk in the Eighties, just might be the year's best covers album. Between Voivod tackling Die Kreuzen, H20 getting Dag Nasty and Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach showing his ska side on Minor Threat's "Salad Days," there's plenty of fun crossovers to enjoy here — but its biggest gift is a rowdy Samhain take courtesy of Brooklyn's Tombs. In honor of our lord and savior Danzig, the band trades avant black metal for hot-blooded hard rock, the group's collective reptile brain on proud display.
Fotocrime - "Duplicate Days"
Neon-streaked and black-leather-clad, "Duplicate Days" is an exemplar of Ryan Patterson's gothy post-punk project Fotocrime. It's a far cry from Coliseum, the noisy post-hardcore with which he made his name, but it's similarly dark and affecting. The lead cut off the trio's new Always Night EP, "Duplicate Days" is a bittersweet sing-along about "the shock of being reminded of our impermanence and the full embrace of the beauty of now" — and, hopefully, a harbinger of Patterson's future output.
Cloak - "Deep Red"
Ever wonder what it'd sound like if Mastodon were reared on Darkthrone's blunt, icy rage rather than Neurosis' heady post-metal? For the answer, one need only spin To Venomous Depths, the Atlanta band Cloak's debut full-length. Ten-minute closer "Deep Red" marches with purpose and tact, avoiding the dynamic quagmires endemic to most heavy-metal long form, and luxuriating in anguished banshee vocals, burly grooves that bubble and churn like boiling swamp-water.
Gatecreeper - "Sweltering Madness"
There's only one thing in the whole wide world that is better than a great band, and that's a great band that continues to get better. On its debut, Sonoran Depravation, this Arizona outfit put a sweltering spin on Scandinavian death metal, wielding its self-described "GED" riffs and a penchant for catchy songwriting to craft a perfectly deadly package. On the new "Sweltering Madness" b/w "Mastery of Power" 7-inch, Gatecreeper pay tribute to their elders while blazing a path of their own, mixing influences that range from Asphyx to early Sentenced and Convulse. It's ignorant as hell, which we promise in the world of death metal, is the highest praise possible.
