Happy October! We're right up to the closing months of the year now, but that doesn't mean that the year is done with brilliant new releases and bands, as plenty still pop up as tours get well and truly underway for one of the wildest October/November/December tour schedules we can remember in years.
Thankfully, we're still here to guide you through the best new music around, much as we have been every other month this year. Below you'll find a collection of some of the most exciting and vibrant new bands around, from nu metal revivalists Profiler to Finnish melodeath supergroup Crownshift, LA doomgazers Iress and sunny SoCal crossover kings Drain.
And if you needed a reminder of some of the other brilliant bands we've highlighted this year, you'll find our handy hottest new bands playlist right below this. Happy listening - and happy Halloween for a few weeks' time!
Crownshift
Supergroup Crownshift may be packed with Finnish metal royalty – they feature members of Children Of Bodom, Nightwish and Finntroll – but guitarist Daniel Freyberg wants you to know that this isn’t one of those half-arsed projects artists embark on when they’re bored.
“We’re not carrying any one band’s torch,” he says. “We’re doing our own mix of everything!”
Crownshift has been a long time coming. Daniel first met bassist Jukka Koskinen and drummer Heikki Saari when they played together in Norther. Although that band split in 2012, and Daniel would move on to work with Alexi Laiho in Children Of Bodom and Bodom After Midnight, they stayed in touch, and would frequently discuss ideas for a project they could all do together. Crownshift is the realisation of their ambitions.
Completed by vocalist Tommy Tuovinen, the band’s self-titled debut mixes melodeath with a heavy helping of prog. Ranging from high-energy hits like The Devil’s Drug, which launches into a moody stomp complete with blastbeats and soaring vocals, to heavy ballad My Prison, which plants the listener in the thick of a passionately melodic guitar solo by way of Tommy’s emotive vocal delivery, it’s a diverse showcase of their instrumental talents.
“We write songs in whatever way we feel,” Daniel says. “We don’t have any restrictions: it’s a free playground!”
Ten-minute ‘crown jewel’ To The Other Side offers a neoclassical solo, as well as employing aggressive down-picking and melodic dual guitars, adding a sprinkling of synth for atmospheric flare. “When you see there’s a 10-minute song on a tracklist, you know it’s gonna be something special without even listening to it,” Daniel says. “This song is something I worked long and hard on, and it turned out epic.” Madison Collier
Crownshift is out now via Nuclear Blast
Sounds Like: loaded full of guitar royalty soloing in the booming grandiosity of outer space
For Fans Of: Children of Bodom, Amorphis, Dream Theater
Listen To: If You Dare
Drain
Sammy Ciaramitaro, vocalist with hardcore hellraisers Drain, is the human equivalent of a golden retriever. Always smiling, greeting every crowdsurfer he sees at their shows, he and his friends formed Drain because of a mutual admiration for each other’s bands (including Sammy’s stint drumming for much-missed bruisers Gulch), and have made their name with no-nonsense crossover that embodies hardcore’s community spirit.
They might be from California, with an outlook reflecting Sammy’s sunny demeanour, but they also bring a confrontational attitude. The first words of Living Proof exemplify that: ‘Run your fucking luck!’ Sammy snarls, before the band unleash an assault of thrashy riffs and squealing guitars.
“We didn’t have a game plan,” Sammy smiles, “but we really liked bands like Power Trip, Nails and Ceremony. When Cody [Chavez, guitar] joined, that’s when we really found the Drain sound.”
Over a smattering of EPs and two albums, they’ve crafted reliably bouncy crossover rooted in the hardcore they love. Along with party thrashers like Devil’s Itch or the frantic, bulldozing Evil Finds Light, Drain are fuelled by the same determination as their peers of “building something bigger than all of us”, and inspiring the next generation of kids to give back to the scene.
They’ve even inspired fans to start their own bands, like fellow crossover thrashers Vespid, who met at a Drain show – and whom Drain promptly brought on tour with them as openers. “We built a community, and built a scene with our friends, and that’s what it’s always been about,” Sammy says proudly. Will Marshall
Living Proof is out now via Epitaph.
Sounds Like: Crossover thrash fuelled by positivity and a healthy dose of skate punk For Fans Of: Power Trip, Municipal Waste, Enforced
Listen To: Evil Finds Light
Iress
‘Dream’ and ‘metal’ aren’t two words usually heard side by side in heavy music. LA-based doomgazers Iress, however, are proud to be the first band to officially represent the subcategory.
“Some songs of ours are really dream-like and pretty, whereas others are heavy and dark,” says frontwoman Michelle Malley, speaking of their new album, Sleep Now, In Reverse. “It’s two completely different sides of music coming together.”
Recorded at Pale Moon Ranch, a studio in the Californian desert, Sleep Now, In Reverse marries the lush, shadowy soundscapes of dream pop bands Beach House and Cocteau Twins with the weightier and more ‘sensual’ end of metal as represented by the likes of Deftones. It’s an album of oppositional forces and transitions; from light to dark, loud to quiet, from feelings of euphoria to melancholy.
“A lot of this album is like a tug of war,” Michelle says, noting how the songs cover the unstable nature of relationships. “People hurt you, betray you and wrong you. Maybe I don’t express my anger in the moment, but in my songs I let it out freely.”
In response to her tender untangling of relationships, the frontwoman has been dubbed ‘the Adele of Doom’.
“People can’t stop saying it,” she says with a chuckle, thinking the moniker over. “I love Adele, and I have a similar kind of soulfulness in my voice, so it’s fitting.”
Looking forward, Michelle hopes that Iress will one day support their favourite bands from both sides of the musical spectrum, including Radiohead, Deafheaven and Beach House.
“Do we want to be the heavier band on the bill, or do we want to open for somebody heavier than us? I’m still finding that sweet spot.” Liz Scarlett
Sleep Now, In Reverse is out now via Church Road
Sounds Like: Listening to crashing waves with a lovelorn, heavy heart
For Fans Of: Chelsea Wolfe, Beach House, Deafheaven
Listen To: The Remains
Profiler
“It's been a long process,” Profiler frontman Mike Evans says wearily, when talking about the making of their debut album, A Digital Nowhere. Formed in Bristol in 2017, more than half of the band’s existence has been spent writing, demoing, rewriting and recording. “There’s tracks on here that I wrote to scout out talent for Profiler!” he adds.
Channelling a litany of turn-of-the-Millennium metal artists, there’s a nostalgia that pervades the album. Written in the throes of the Covid lockdowns, the trio were longing for simpler days.
“Things get so complicated in music now,” Mike says. “But there’s an authenticity to the raw instrumentation of that era that people will never fall out of love with.”
They’re already seeing the benefits, with a signing to “dream” label SharpTone, and a European tour supporting Vended now under their belts, which gave them a chance to expose new audiences to their music.
With their feet firmly planted in nu metal, shades of grunge and even Britpop are added in and held together with a modern metalcore sound, resulting in something that’s familiar yet distinctly their own.
“When things feel so bleak, it’s nice to have that nostalgia that brings a community together,” says Mike. Jack Terry
A Digital Nowhere is out now via SharpTone
Sounds Like: Your favourite 90s songs grew up but never threw out the baggy jeans For Fans Of: Turnstile, Deftones, Thornhill
Listen To: All In Forever
