Anyone else done with summer yet? Now, we’re not saying we hate the long, glorious hours of daylight, but a bit of crepuscular cooling wouldn’t go amiss. Still, we’re right in the thick of it so far as festival season is concerned, with Inkcarceration happening in the US this week, while Wacken, Bloodstock and ArcTanGent are all to come in the next few weeks.
But, we digress. We’re here to talk about new music, so let’s round-up the results of last week’s vote! Indian prog metallers Fallen Letters sailed into third place with A Familiar Absence, while thrash legends Anthrax nabbed second with The Edge Of Perfection. Our overall winners however were Japan’s Hanabie., Life Is Short, O Brave Girl almost taking double the votes of the competition.
It’s all to play for this week as we have returning metal veterans and exciting new talent alike with the likes of Mastodon and In This Moment up against Burner, Brat and Loathe. Don’t forget to cast your vote in the poll below, and have an excellent weekend!
Loathe – No Stranger To You
It’s been a long wait for a proper follow up to I Let It In And It Took Everything. But Loathe are back and swinging for the fences on new album A Stranger To You, latest single No Stranger To You capturing the band at their most shoegaze inspired with a sense of both heft and gorgeous, weightless melody.
Mastodon – Snakes For Dinner
Speaking of new albums with a lot of hype and interest, Mastodon have announced their upcoming ninth album. Titled Marrow Deep, it’s their first without founding member and lead guitarist Brent Hinds, and will be out August 28. The retooled ‘Don have been out on the road since last summer so we kind of already knew they were still firing on all cylinders, but Snakes For Dinner confirms it with delightful gusto, the band even drafting in Josh Homme for a surprise guest vocal that fits surprisingly well amidst their cosmic-yet-earthy sound.
In This Moment – Crawl
With some real pop’n’lock industrial beats, In This Moment are getting good and sweaty in the club on new single Crawl. Taken from new album Witch, due August 28, it’s a seriously infectious track that makes us want to shimmy and headbang till our spines crumble like stale cookies.
Red Method – Detonate
Championing the heavier end of the nu metal revival, Red Method are in full feral force on newest single Detonate. Tight, claustrophobic grooves are met with what sounds like a wolverine operating a turntable, old school record scratches fitting in well amidst this delightfully vicious showing from the band’s new EP As In Life, which is out today.
Bury Tomorrow – Sx
While this isn’t the first time Bury Tomorrow have made a stylistic shift, we’ll admit we were pretty surprised to hear them swinging for some industrial thump on new single Sx. Coming with the announcement they’ve launched their own independent label imprint Death Records, it sounds like the British band are tiring of the metalcore pool and looking to expand their sonic horizons.
Employed To Serve – A Moment Gone Too Soon
It’s always oh so gratifying to hear Employed To Serve let rip. Whether it’s the booming swing of I Spend My Days or the Araya-like howl of Treachery, they’ve shown they know how to go hard in a satisfying way, and new single A Moment Gone Too Soon is no exception to that form. From it’s blast like opening to the steady rhythmic bombardment that lends it a sense of infectious invigoration, it’s exactly the kind of tune that’s made for sweaty club pits. Lucky that there’ll be plenty of chances to see them on tour in the UK in November, then.
Scene Queen – Metalicious
They don’t call her the queen for nothing. Bimbocore pioneer Scene Queen is offering up a crash course in the subgenre on newest single Metalicious, taking 00s pop and culture then brutalising it with some thick, thumping grooves and riffs. It’s short and straight to the point, and while it might not have the killer hook of 18+ or Finger, it has an addictive quality that’ll have the refrain “I’m hitting the mosh” sticking in your head for days. The full Metalicious EP is coming September 11.
Brat – Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury)
Surely a Brat/Scene Queen tour would be a slam dunk? Granted, Brat profess to be champions of Barbiegrind rather than bimbocore, but we reckon the overlap between two audiences is nothing to sniff at. Nor is Brat’s latest single, for that matter, Manslayer (Hell Hath No Fury) a straight ahead brute of a track that shows Brat aren’t fucking about when it comes to the nasty stuff with lashings of 90s death metal chucked in for good measure.
The Ocean – Belligerence
We’re starting to get a real sense of what this new line-up of The Ocean is all about now. Where previous single Light Pollution was based heavily on melody, Belligerence balances the melody out with the seismic, crashing-tectonic-plate riffs that were so prevalent on their earlier records when the band leaned harder towards post-metal than prog. New album Solaris is coming on September 25 and promises to be an odyssey.
Burner – What Will You Give? (ft. Josh Middleton)
After gatecrashing their way into Hammer‘s Top 50 albums of 2023 with their debut It All Returns To Nothing, Burner are back with a new record. Titled No One Is Coming To Save Us, it’s due September 25 and first single What Will You Give shows off some deft extreme metal nuances, one minute a slavering, death metal brute, the next chucking hardcore pace-shifts like Hatebreed gorging on Cannibal Corpse. With a guest appearance from Sylosis’ Josh Middleton, they’re clearly looking to stake their territory in the British metal landscape.
Soulgrind – Jylhä metsämies
Careening in on a hard riff and then unleashing some of the gnarliest, tumorous vocals we’ve heard in a hot minute, Soulgrind might take the prize for the hardest single of this week. The Finnish extreme metallers clearly delight in chucking out curveballs: kicking around since the 90s, they started out doom but these days have more of a blackened bent, albeit with surprise forays into prog that add a nice twist to their sound. New album Ad Pulchram Mortem comes on August 14 – stick it on if you want your brain melting a bit.
Native James – Never Been Scared (ft. Frisco)
Grime metal is still in its infancy, but Native James looks to be stepping up as one of the subgenre’s stars. Intense flows meet clanging, juddering riffs as James spits his flows with guest vocalist Frisco. The pair debuted the track at this year’s Download Festival and if you’re looking for a harder strain of rap metal, you’d do well to give this a spin.
As its creators dare, modern metal music holds the unique position of having decades of realized and celebrated sounds to guide it. Whether it’s the harmonized crunch of Iron Maiden, the forlorn, minor-scale weeping of 