How about that intense sunshine? Thankfully, here are 10 bands which have thoughtfully scheduled new music in advance to help take our minds of those red and amber weather warnings. It’s like everything Nuclear Assault predicted in the ’80s is coming true.
Check the best 10 metal songs of the week before your local power infrastructure buckles under the weight of a million fans being switched on at once.
The Hu – Grey Hun
Mongolian folk metallers The Hu are set to release their third album Hun on July 24. According to horsehead fiddle player and backing vocalist Enkhsaikhan ‘Enkush’ Batjargal, Grey Hun is a thumping anthem that celebrates everyone’s right to be themselves and deserves to be played at a more than reasonable volume.
“It started with composing the riff as I imagined a man riding his horse through a vast landscape,” he explains. “From there, it took a while for us to finish the song because we wanted to make sure to clearly communicate [its] positive message.”
Loathe – Fangs
Merseyside four-piece Loathe release their long-awaited new album A Stranger To You on July 17. Fangs is a bass-y slab of downtuned R&B featuring a sublime vocal performance from Kadeem France. Following on from the thudding metalcore of Revenant, it’s clear that their time away has been wisely spent adding even more colours to their sonic palette.
Five Finger Death Punch – De Oppresso Liber
It’s been about four years since Five Finger Death Punch released their last album, AfterLife. The Nevada quintet are readying the digital release of album 10 – Legacy – at the end of July, with physical releases planned for later in the year. On De Oppresso Liber, it’s business as usual for Zoltan Bathory’s mob. It’s got more crunch you could shake a stick at and a memorable, soaring chorus. “[The title] is more than just a motto,” says the guitarist. “It’s a calling. It’s a philosophy. It represents a willingness to stand between danger and those who cannot defend themselves. Throughout human history, there have always been people who were drawn to accept that responsibility. This song is our way of paying respect to that mindset.”
Bring Me The Horizon – Dehumanized
Bring Me The Horizon aren’t celebrating the 20th anniversary of their album Count Your Blessings with a lazy reissue. Count Your Blessings Repented is a new recording, which sees the Sheffield four-piece give the album a proper makeover and deliver the sound they’d envisioned as teenagers. Dehumanised is a brutal bastard of a single with an aggressive, unsettling video to match.
King Ultramega – Loud Love
King Ultramega is the star-studded tribute to late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. This cover of the Louder Than Love single features an incredible vocal performance from Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick and former Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen. It’s a faithful rendition by all those involved and a bittersweet reminder of Cornell’s incalculable loss.
Chelsea Wolfe – Death is Not the End
This week, Chelsea Wolfe released two new songs which will feature on her as-yet-untitled ninth studio album. The first was the folky The Dark but it’s Death is Not the End that is the most affecting. A fragile vocal floats above a delicate piano and guitar line, before gradually swelling into a soaring, meditative doom riff by former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck.
Russian Circles – Empath
Well, if it’s not our favourite post-metal hypnotists named after an ice hockey drill who return with a new song and news of a brand new full-length. Taken from the album Nine, which was recorded at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studio and engineered by Converge’s Kurt Ballou, Empath is gloriously heavy, all-enveloping, ominous and mesmerising. Absolutely perfect.
Psycroptic – No Blade of Grass
Australian quintet Psycroptic return with The Pulse of Annihilation, their first album in four years, on July 17. No Blade of Grass is a ferocious bark of tech-death with an immense groove. And to drive the song title home, the narrative part of their video is set in a desert. Thanks lads!
Green Lung – Necropolitan Line
Here’s another taster from the occultist stoner doom quintet’s forthcoming album Necropolitan. This song is about the Necropolis Railway, “a real-life train line that carried corpses and mourners across London in the late 19th century”. So imagine if Deep Purple were trapped in a carriage with a bag of cans and holding torches under their chins, then you’ve got yourself some creepy 70s psych pomp. Lovely stuff.
New Idea Society – Lantern
Here’s a second mention of Kurt Ballou, and that’s a wonderful thing. New Idea Society, a project featuring Cave In‘s Stephen Brodsky and Euclid’s Mike Law, have filmed a performance of the slow-burning Lantern at God City Studios with a few friends: Cave In’s Adam McGrath, Old Man Gloom’s Santos Montano and Ballou. The original can be found on the album Fire On The Hill, which was released last month through Relapse.