Dan Hillier
The first single to be taken from the band’s eagerly anticipated new record What We Do To Feel – released November 10th via Easy Life – ‘The Lens’ is a deeply vital statement from a band that has become crucially important within the national scene. In an increasingly chaotic age where joy has become second to the perpetual grind of progress at the expense of compassion, ‘The Lens’ see’s Lonely The Brave imploring one to remember that everyone has a deeply unique perspective towards life and how our collective view of normality has become warped. Effortlessly demonstrating the band’s long-established skill exploring intimacy in the form of soaring melodies and grandiose songwriting, ‘The Lens’ is a testament to the growth the band have undertake in recent years and a song that appears to heralds what may be Lonely The Brave’s boldest body of work to date. – Dan Hillier
Everyone’s favourite goth heartthrobs are back. The latest single from the taken from the band’s upcoming full length Sanguivore – released October Friday the 13th, naturally – ‘Teenage Sacrifice’ is a sleek, bloodthirsty and sly serving of theatrical goth punk that just oozes fatal charm with it’s classic goth stylings, modern horror tropes and throbbing synths. Seeing Creeper in their most vampiric form to date, the track highlights the theatrical and conceptual nature of Sanguivore by introducing the character of Mercy, the figure at the bleeding heart of the narrative running through the record. Quite simply, it’s bloody good fun and sets the stage for Creeper’s most theatrical release to date. – Dan Hillier
At this point, you just have to throw everything you know about The Armed out of the window. Every track released from upcoming album Perfect Saviors has thrown a different curve ball the listener’s way. Liar 2, the newest single, is a Euro synthpop banger that you’d expect to hear in a Swedish club circa 2009. It’s a little bit sexy, a little bit woozy and a lot of fun. With tracks like this, it’s really hard to see the band not getting a hell of a lot more attention on this record, and you could easily slot this track onto the radio and nobody would bat an eyelid. Don’t mistake that for a claim of selling out though, this is a band who still stringently do things their own way, even though at this point it’s hard to know what that way is. Whack it on, close your eyes and pretend it’s 1am in a foggy, strobe filled club and you’re living your best life. – Chris Earl
The group’s first single via their new home of Year Of The Rat Records, ‘The Tide’ see’s Kite Thief making their biggest splash thus far. The latest single from the Bristol alt-metal collective, ‘The Tide’ demonstrates Kite Thief’s brilliant talent in unionising the playful nature of Vukovi, with the dense dayanim of Spiritbox and the emotional release of Holding Absence. “When we were writing ‘The Tide’, I don’t think I realised how much this song was a cry for help”, states vocalist Elin Allan. “It’s such an energetic, in your face song and I was so angry at this point in my life that I honed in on a very cutthroat approach to life. I had just gone through a huge, very tough break up and was having one of the lowest points in my life and with time, now it’s finally released, I think I have accepted that anger and turned it into power.” – Dan Hillier
Just before Scottish heavyweights Bleed From Within set off on a frankly ridiculous UK tour being main support to Trivium, they’ve dropped a brand new track to whet our appetites. Part of the upcoming deluxe edition of their latest record Shrine, The Will To Resist is another straight ahead banger from the band. Opening with a pit-inducing riff backed up by some haunting keys, before Scott Kennedy and his instantly recognisable “I’ll meet you outside in two minutes” antagonising vocals come in. Throw in some more of the cleans experimented with on Shrine and you’re left with a track that shows the band at their best. It blends searing guitars, complex yet pummelling drums and addictive melodies into a track too good to be relegated to a deluxe edition, surely. One of the best up and coming heavy bands in the world, the Scots will hopefully be at the top of the bill next time they swing by our shores, as since their comeback, they’ve built up one of the best sets of songs in modern metal. – Chris Earl
Toronto’s Pneumonia Breath are back with yet another solid example of great metal coming out of the North. Existence may be pain like the title of this massive single states, but audibly it’s anything but. Full of blasting drums and shredding guitars throughout the majority of the song, there’s very much hints of Teeth to its sound. This time around, the group sprinkled a hint of stylings similar to San Francisco’s deathcore unit Spite. Guitarist Nick Perovic takes the reins with their solid guitar playing while Mike Hranica of legendary metalcore outfit The Devil Wears Prada makes an unexpected surprise appearance. Closing out the single with a bang, Mike seems to carry the ending breakdown with ease and with their signature roar making it even heavier than expected, this breakdown will incite chaos wherever it lands. – Nathaniel Maure
If there was ever a song that contained the most threatening mid-tempo opening it’s this one. Death metal veterans Cannibal Corpse release another single off the upcoming 16th album of their illustriously gore ridden career. The track gives you the same feeling as if you were being forcibly dragged into someone’s basement. You leave behind a trail of crimson where you were bludgeoned unconscious, and you awake just in time for the door to close, the last vestments of daylight you ever see cut off with imminent finality. Corpsegrinder’s vocals are on point, the riffs are all there, the drums sound as good as ever, it’s a good time to be gore obsessed, this new album promises to be a truly wretched spawn. – Rob Bown
Fans of metalcore that sounds like it came out between 2002-2005 are eating incredibly good right now, with an absolute litany of bands releasing incredible music with a throwback sound. Vancouver based A Mourning Star are one of the hottest tipped names in that realm right now, having just announced a debut album and released its furious first single, ‘Encased in Crystalline’. Opening with a riff that wouldn’t be out of place on an early Unearth record, you can hear that this young band have a great sense of the sound they’re emulating. With drumming so frantic it sounds like early Darkest Hour at points, it eventually moves into a spoken word/clean vocals section that will take you back to listening to Poison The Well on a 128mb MP3 player. Along with Dying Wish, Your Spirit Dies and Foreign Hands, A Mourning Star are the up and coming band you need to know about in the classic metalcore revival. – Chris Earl
Edmonton’s own Eyes Front are back again with yet another hardcore tune to grace those ear drums. This time they brought the Burnaby Street slam crew Cleaver along for the ride. Ignorant to the core is an understatement. Recorded by the lovely Nelson Collins-Lee while mixing and mastering was completed by the talented Maxime Lacroix over at House Of Gain Studios in Quebec, Canada. With many talents from the Canadian alt scene contributing to one song you can almost guarantee it’ll be a banger before even hearing it and once you do hear it, you’ll be glad you did. Eyes Front are bringing the heat with their new music and the addition of Cleaver on this track makes it even hotter and that much more heavy. – Nathaniel Maure
Telling the tale of a person as disgusting as this songs sounds, the poetically titled ‘Swivel Eyed And gurning In The Shadows’ is utterly rancid death metal void of gimmicks, cleans and impurities. The latest record taken from Celestial Sanctuary’s upcoming record Insatiable Thirst For Torment – released August 25th via Church Road Records – the track plays host to the band’s promise of returning to the sordid roots of the genre, a time where the depths of depravity where explored for creative inspiration.”This is about some pathetic, crazed perverted creature. Always on the cusp of committing some horrible acts – but they’re too timid to follow through, so retreat to their disgusting hovel and fantasise about it instead”, state the band on the track. “Then they just die from lack of hygene n’ shit. Not to mention all they’ve been living off is is their own phlegm and spit. There was no real ‘intention’ behind this song and was very much one we let steer itself to see where it would go. It turned out to be one of the more intense and heaviest songs on the record and I think it pulls a lot from all corners of the death metal universe, while still sounding cohesive” – Dan Hillier