6 New Songs You Need to Hear This Week: 2/16/18 | Page 2 | Revolver

6 New Songs You Need to Hear This Week: 2/16/18

The Armed, Street Sects, Jesse Leach's new hardcore band the Weapon and more
The Armed Press Photo
The Armed, 2018

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.

The Armed - "Witness"
To experience the Armed's new single "Witness" is to willingly, gleefully, belly-flop into the fires of Mount Doom, grinning ear to ear all the while. With Ben Koller (Converge, Killer Be Killed, Mutoid Man) added to their ranks, the Detroit-based outfit has never sounded more confident — or more eager to break all the rules of the underground, be it through atypical tempos or thick swathes of shoegaze guitars. This is epic, labyrinthine punk, the kind that swallows you whole, the kind you get lost in, and most importantly, the kind that makes you realize how lucky you are to have functioning eardrums.

Street Sects - "In Contempt"
Equally celebrated and notorious for their pummeling industrial assault and their strobe-light nightmare of a live show, Streets Sects have experimented with a more melodic and goth-inflected sound on recent EPs. "In Contempt" — which appears on an intriguing split release with screamo crew Portrayal of Guilt — finds a compelling middle ground between their all-out aggro side and their more introspective turns, hinting in the process at even greater things to come.

The Weapon - "At What Cost"
Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach unleashed his new old-school hardcore-punk project the Weapon this week, and the world is better for it. Also featuring ex-Aggressive Dogs member Chris Drapeau, as well as Leach's pals Josh Mihlek and Andy Mass, "At What Cost" is the first single from the DIY group's self-titled two-song EP, out now. Lyrically, it's about "how we as humans are abusing and destroying the very earth that gives us life," the singer says, and in totality, the song is raw, pissed-off and just fuckin' rips.

Windhand - "Three Sisters"
Windhand songs have never been short, but the Virginian doom band goes epic even by their own standards on "Three Sisters," one of their two tracks on the group's new split with Satan's Satyrs. Spanning 14 minutes and ushering eerie Hammer Horror organs into the mix, the song seethes and crawls like a Lovecraftian monstrosity across mist-shrouded moors.

American Nightmare - "Gloom Forever"
Wes Eisold has arguably become better known for his dark wave outfit Cold Cave over the nearly two decades since his Cro-Magnon crew American Nightmare coalesced out of the Boston hardcore scene, and fans of the former project will be happy to know that some of its Joy Divisionesque post-punk vibe has crept into the former on its first new album in 15 years. Case in point "Gloom Forever," a sunglasses-on-at-midnight cemetery romp that could well pass for a lost cut by a more gravelly-throated Grave Pleasures.

Whipstriker - "Calm Before Destruction"
You know those self-described "crossover thrash" outfits who try and pass off their half-assed, reheated Master of Puppets worship as fresh, modern-era rippers? Well, the Brazilian battalion Whipstriker ain't one of them. "Calm After Destruction," the latest cut off the band's upcoming Merciless Artillery, breathes new life into the beloved genre, by way of all-out war; its fist-in-the-air chorus, spearheaded by hammering yet hummable guitar melodies, stands as one of the finest refrains of 2018 thus far. We can count on this Rio outfit to bring the heat, and this show of firepower's all their own.