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, black metal, occult rock 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.
Ghost - "The Future Is a Foreign Land"
Sorry for the spoiler, but this is the truly bangin' new psych-garage gem that Ghost pulled out for the closing credits of their new RITE HERE RITE NOW feature film.
There's a delightful mold-splotched patina to this retro-fied AM Gold pastiche, where woozy organ stabs and soulful backup vocals sidle up to a Spaghetti Western-style guitar lead. It's also lyrically dark but hopeful, with Papa Nihil crooning about 1984-style mind control, the death of the Kennedys, and whether or not we'll find "peace forevermore" by 2024.
Kittie - "Fire"
Like a four-headed phoenix rising from the ashes, Canadian metal greats Kittie tee off their long-awaited comeback LP with this savagely scorching title track.
Vocalist-guitarist Morgan Lander is lit up with an internal rage that eventually incinerates all doubters with hellfire screaming ("I am fire you'll regret"). The band likewise sets the track ablaze with punishingly percussive groove-metal fury, while an all-out inferno of shred comes shooting out of lead guitarist Tara McLeod's incendiary lead section.
Fiery stuff, to say the least.
Graphic Nature - "Human"
Graphic Nature continue to grapple with the griminess of the human condition, with vocalist Harvey Freeman screaming about the interpersonal wreckage left in the wake of someone's impeccably selfish ways.
Fit with heavy beats and a nu-styled, string-scraping percussiveness that sounds like someone dropped a running turntable into an active bandsaw, "Human" is a Dickensian slamfest about someone desperately trying to change themselves for the better — at least, if it's not already too late.
Gasket - "Acolyte"
"Acolyte" is one of the most intense moments of Gasket's new BABYLON EP, and it comes awash in a sea of jarring feedback, black-metal-adjacent guitar dissonance and pavement-pounding hardcore drumming.
On another level, it might be the record's most uplifting track, with vocalist Flynn Joseph Zimmer using his phenomenally noise-wretched screech to combat world-weary bleakness with defiant purpose ("I will not live to suffer"). "Acolyte" is an independence anthem that paradoxically may find the rising Baltimore group gaining new followers.
Wormwitch - "Draconick Sorcerous Canadian Witchknights"
If you thought the song title was a mouthful, wait'll you experience the sensory overload of Vancouver, BC magick practitioners Wormwitch double-kicking and trill-riffing their way through this masterful black-metal blaster.
Outside of one oddly bluesy micro-break guitar bend, "Draconick Sorcerous Canadian Witchknights" is a relentlessly strafed sermon from these up-North sorcerers, though it manages to push its BPMs even further into overdrive for that mega-fast finale.
Extinction A.D. - "Impervious (Unrepentant)" Feat. Matthew Kiichi Heafy
Trivium leader Matt Heafy stops by for a Hulked-out guest spot where he screams about "showing no quarter to my enemies" — but he and Long Island thrashers Extinction A.D. pull no punches on the faithful with this rager, either.
"Impervious (Unrepentant)" is a bruising, bombastic donnybrook of metal-edged mega-threats and wide-vibrato pinch-squealing, and you're going to get messed up by Extinction A.D. whether you like 'em or not.
