Here at Revolver, we're always on the hunt for new songs to bang our heads to — indeed, it's a big part of our jobs. With that in mind, here are the tracks released this week in hardcore, metal, alt-gloom, and more that have been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we've also compiled the songs in an ever-evolving Spotify playlist.
Knocked Loose – "Slaughterhouse 2" Feat. Chris Motionless
Though the whole of Knocked Loose's You Won't Go Before You're Supposed to is outstandingly savage, there's something particularly special about "Slaughterhouse 2."
A metallic hardcore answer to Motionless in White's 2022 rager "Slaughterhouse" featuring Knocked Loose's Bryan Garris, the standout boasts gloriously gritty mosh moments and Michael Bay-grade drum explosions, not to mention the reunited blockbuster vocal tandem of Garris and MIW frontman Chris Motionless.
Sequels always suck? Consider that old adage slaughtered.
King Woman - "Bury"
On top of appearing in new, supernatural A24 film I Saw the TV Glow, Kris Esfandiari's slow-glooming King Woman project has also coronated the film soundtrack with two songs: one old, 2021's "Psychic Wound," and one new, the exquisitely murky "Bury."
The OST exclusive delivers enigmatically ominous, cooly-casual lyricism ("I hate it here/Didn't like what I found"), incandescent doom-fuzz, and oddly blown-out drum distortion that beckons you deep into a hypnagogic mist of television static.
Vulvodynia - "Etabeni"
Vulvodynia's rep for being "the heaviest band out there" remains in fine, furious shape, with this latest soul-devastator presenting the South African act in peak deathcore form (fittingly, "Etabeni" is Zulu for "Mountain").
The outfit's latest offering with semi-recently-instated singer Lwandile Prusent — who duels here with guest vocalist Damonteal Harris, of PeelingFlesh — is expertly ruthless, sporting double-kick insanity, gothically bombastic shred guitar, and a grossly choked-out, condemnation-dripping vocal performance.
REZN - "Collapse"
Having sat on their upcoming Burden album for the past three years — after recording it simultaneously with 2021's Solace — Chicago doom veterans REZN are finally uncorking atmospheric mastery like latest single "Collapse."
Despite its distant miasma of whispered vocal melodies, the track generally has REZN dirging deep into amber-glow amp damage. It nevertheless comes across with a surprising amount of grace.
Gasket - "Syndicate"
Hardcore has historically teeter-tottered between songs that try to keep us united, and battle anthems to keep us fully fucking divided. Gasket vocalist Flynn Joseph Zimmer runs with the latter on "Syndicate," sniffing out a nefarious "wolf who runs with the sheep," and gravely warning them to stay away at all costs ("Your kin ain't my fucking kind").
It's all delivered with vicious D-beat sincerity, making it sound like the Baltimore band ain't playing.
Wretched Blessing - "Mirror Vulture"
At its most stressed-out extremes, Windy City punk-metal duo Wretched Blessing's self-titled debut EP dimes into distressingly dissonant guitar chording and pedometer-melting blast work.
The record's closing "Mirror Vulture" reflects a different side of the band, with Kayhan Vaziri (Yautja, Coliseum) and Rae Amitay (Immortal Bird, Thrawsunblat) plunging themselves into a tar-pit-sticky bit of extended sludging — at least until the pair go nuclear with a last gasp of black-metal-adjacent speediness.
