Happy Friday! Anyone feel like Spring has hit early? Between a combination of massive and illustrious bands announcing summer tours - AC/DC, Pearl Jam, Mr. Bungle, Body Count, take your pick! - and the fact we've noticed the sun glaring just a little earlier than we'd become accustomed to in our wintery abodes, it really does feel like things are truly afoot in 2024 now.
Speaking of which, here's the results of last week's vote! We had a bumper week of additions last week covering everything from metalcore to black metal, sludge and beyond. Doom legends My Dying Bride took a very admirable third place with the haunting Thornwyck Hymn, while thrash legend Kerry King rose with his solo debut, Idle Hands. But while the legends took pole position, it was the next generation of metal that ultimately won, 12-year-old metal sensation Harper bringing home the gold with the utterly furious I Hope You Choke. With one fan dubbing her "the Metal Princess", we can't help but reckon they're onto something.
Speaking of metal royalty, the Metal Queen is back this week as we have new music from Doro, as well as the first new single from nu metal veterans Kittie in 13 years! There's also fresh cuts from While She Sleeps, a returning High On Fire and some brilliant new faces you should definitely be familiarising yourself with. As ever, we need you to tell us which songs excite you most, so don't forget to cast your vote in the poll below! And as ever, happy listening - have a great weekend!
Kittie - Eyes Wide Open
Resurrected in 2022, nu metal veterans Kittie this week released Eyes Wide Open, their first new song in 13 years. While the nu metal revival might have played a big part in the band’s return, their new music offers a decidedly heavier and more updated sound that doesn’t feel so beholden to the turn of the millennium, Morgan Lander’s hellion howls and shrieks accompanied by brutish, thumping riffs that suggest the band aren’t interested in only trading on past glories.
Fever 333 - Ready Rock
With a simple statement at the centre of its video - “rock music is black music” and a drumbeat decidedly reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll, Fever 333 have come back swinging with a celebration of black artists on new single Ready Rock. Explosive and built on bounding riffs and beats, Ready Rock captures the band’s high-octane live energy, frontman Jason Aalon Butler shrieking with a sense of urgency that has us hoping that a new record from the re-tooled Fever 333 isn’t too far on the horizon, especially with the band having recently popped up in arenas as support for Enter Shikari on their UK tour.
While She Sleeps - To The Flowers
While She Sleeps' capacity for sonic experimentation has been well documented at this point, but with a little over a month to go until the band unveil their new album Self Hell, we’re also getting a sense that the band have one of their most anthemic songs since the all-conquering Silence Speaks in new single To The Flowers. Accompanied by a self-directed short film, To The Flower is a testament to Sleeps’ towering melodies, subtle synths adding a shimmering quality to the song that lends it an otherworldly vibe.
Doro - Heart In Pain
Previously only available on physical copies of her bombastic latest album, 2023's Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud, Heart In Pain is a brooding, chugging heavy metal bruiser that shows a vulnerable, love-stricken side to our favourite Heavy Metal Queen. It also features one of the most pleasantly surprising and triumphant tonal about-turns of any metal banger in recent memory. "Heart In Pain is an extraordinary song: melodic, rocking, with a surprising ending and an emotional message that comes from the heart," says the woman herself.
High On Fire - Burning Down
Four years since they earned a Grammy for Electric Messiah, Matt Pike’s stoner metal heroes High On Fire are back with new single Burning Down. All slow-burn riffs and throat-shredding growls, HoF have found no need to toy with their formula in the six years since their last album and it’s just as well: HoF remain a timeless and instantly recognisable force, stomping and braying with a ferocity that leaves no mystery as to how they became one of stoner’s most esteemed forces.
DragonForce - Wildest Dreams
How do you guarantee a ton of accidental attention from earnest pop fans stumbling across the wrong version of one of their favourite hits? Record a cover song of a track with a billion streams to its name! Hooray! Dragonforce don't do subtle, so don't be surprised to find that their riotous and completely ludicrous cover of Taylor Swift's Wildest Dreams takes every ounce of the warmth and emotional heft of the original, shreds it all to bits and then...well...shreds all over it as well. Silly? Yes. Fun as hell? Also yes.
Sonic Universe - I Am
Featuring the talented pipes of Living Colour’s Corey Glover, Sonic Universe’s debut single I Am is a decidedly familiar affair, harkening to the funk-driven sound LC helped popularise at the tail end of the 80s, in turn ushering in the alt boom of the 90s. All that said, there’s a vibrancy and bounce to I Am which is undeniably thrilling, guitarist Mike Orlando offering punchy riffs that lend a thrust ‘n’ parry interaction with Glover. Keep an eye out for Sonic Universe’s debut It Is What It Is on May 10.
Battlesnake - Motorsteeple
Tongues firmly in cheek, Aussies Battlesnake are taking a King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard type approach to trad metal, all driving riffs and heretical imagery in a nest of insistent daftness that makes the band oh so endearing. Somehow novel even as they play with well-trodden elements from heavy metal’s early days, Battlesnake are set to tour the UK in May, bringing their brilliantly bizarre imagery and sound to fresh audiences.
Suicidal Angels - Virtues Of Destruction
Staunch old school thrash adherents, Greece’s Suicidal Angels have been quietly amassing a thrash-tastic arsenal across a 17-year, eight album span. Virtues Of Destruction is business as usual then, a high-octane, tooth gnashing offering that draws its lineage from the likes of Slayer and Exodus whilst remaining deliriously excited about the prospect, the band practically bouncing off the walls with each fresh offering of machine gun riffs and spat mosh calls. With a European tour due to kick off in a couple of weeks - and touch down in the UK in April - it’s high time metal fans familiarise themselves with an all too often overlooked band from the metal underground, new album Profane Prayer due just in time for their shows on March 1.
Glassing - Defacer
Defacer isn’t just the title of Glassing’s new single, it’s a descriptor of the song’s effect on the listener, it’s grinding viciousness coming on like an aural flaying. The first single from Glassing’s upcoming fourth album From The Other Side Of The Mirror - due April 26 - the track marries vicious, abrasive heft with a sense of surprising grandeur and cold beauty that is reminiscent of black metal’s most epic moments.
