Metal Hammer's tracks of the week: May 10 2024
Happy Friday! We're back again with a fresh batch of brilliant new songs for your listening pleasure, hunting high and low to offer everything from the latest singles from veteran favourites Coheed And Cambria and Kittie to rising stars like Hanabie, Vended and Vulvodynia, exploring everything from deathcore to nu metal, prog and black'n'roll.
But first, the results of last week's vote! All That Remains roared back to life with a third-place finish on latest single Divine, but they were ultimately beat to the runner-up position by Indian death metal brutes Godless. In a total change of pace, it was returning goth metal stars Unto Others who took top spot, Butterfly proving that even with summer fast approaching we all love a bit of darkness.
This week we're casting the net far and wide, finding bands everywhere from Sweden and the US to South Africa and Japan, yet more proof that metal truly is a global phenomenon. But regardless of where these bands come from, it's their music that matters most and we need your help to decide which songs excite you most. In that spirit, don't forget to cast your vote below - and have an excellent weekend!
Kittie - Vultures
After blazing their way back on a comeback trail with a string of stellar standalone singles, Kittie have now announced we’re getting a brand new album. Titled Fire, it’ll be with us in just over a month on June 21, new single Vultures showing just how much the band’s sound has evolved since they returned, sidestepping the nu metal revival in favour of throat-shredding melodeath style howls and tight, powerful riffs.
Coheed And Cambria - The Joke
While new music from Coheed And Cambria is always a cause for celebration, we shouldn’t get our hopes up for a follow-up to Vaxis II just yet. New single The Joke was recorded during those sessions and carries the same polished sheen as that album’s finest tracks, albeit with a liberal dose of electronic effects on everything from Claudio Sanchez’s voice to the tone of the guitars, helping make the track feel like a fun oddity amidst the band’s catalogue. Extra marks for the gorgeously shot, Joker-referencing music video, too.
Vulvodynia - Entabeni
Ultra-technical deathcore from South Africa, Vulvodynia have always delighted in the genre’s most vicious, cartoonish elements (you want pigsqueals? They’ll give you pigsqueals). With guitarist Lwandile Prusent taking over vocals, the band’s freshly announced new album Entabeni seems to both stay the course for the band’s hyperactive brand of extremity whilst also pushing their lyrics in new directions, the title track drawing on African folklore as a show of how they are evolving and coming into their own after a decade of toil.
Simone Simons - Aeterna (ft. Ayreon)
Apparently not busy enough recording a new album with Epica and preparing for some massive, orchestrally-enhanced symphonic shows in September, vocalist SImone Simons has announced that her debut solo album Vermillion will be released on August 23. Aeterna offers a first glimpse at what the album may have in store, returning to some of the more operatic stylings of her earlier work with Epica whilst adding a buzzing electronica element that suggests she’s not just sticking to familiar territory.
Bleeding Through - Our Brand Is Chaos
Bleeding Through might have risen amidst the 2000s metalcore boom, but the band have long since departed those realms in favour of extremity. Case in point, new single Our Brand Is Chaos sits somewhere between the apocalyptic grandeur of a Fleshgod Apocalypse and an almost stripped back version of the maelstrom at the heart of A New Kind Of Horror-era Anaal Nathrakh, the vocal lines kept fairly simple to ensure maximum howl-alongs. Altogether now, fuck with us and find out.
Hanabie - Girls Talk
Since taking the metal world by storm with their second album Reborn Superstar! in summer 2023, Hanabie have shown time and again that genres are something that happens to other people. Latest single Girls Talk is a perfect demonstration of that, weaving a line between ravecore-style breakouts and riffs and snarling metalcore with an overall sense of infectious enthusiasm that has us bouncing with excitement at the prospect of catching the band live again this year. With just a few weeks to go until Download Festival, we won’t have to wait long.
Vended - Nihilism
Currently bringing their hyper-kinetic brand of nu metal to Europe, Vended’s latest single Nihilism is yet more proof that this band are going for broke when it comes to vicious, all-out sonic bedlam. Flipping between gravel-throated roars and ascendant, radio-friendly choruses, the Iowans are making a clear case for their breakthrough into the big leagues - meaning their upcoming UK tour might be the most intimate setting you’ll see this lot in.
Orange Goblin - Cemetary Rats
Orange Goblin haven’t exactly made a secret of their love for Black Sabbath, but we dare say the bass tone of new single Cemetary Rats would be enough to bring a tear to Geezer Butler’s eye. Taken from the band’s new record Science, Not Fiction - out July 19 - this is British stoner/doom at its finest, grease-slicked riffs and gruff shout-alongs that have us itching to be in a sweaty basement. Speaking of - the band will be offering a sneak-peek at London’s Raven Records next week as part of Desertfest. If you love riffs and great tunes, it’d be daft not to go.
Thou - Unbidden Guest
Meaner than a bear with a sore arse - and with snarls twice as vicious - Thou’s latest single Unbidden Guest hits like concrete after a 100 foot drop. But then, that’s about par for the course from the Louisiana sludge sextet, new album Umbilical shaping up to be a typically bleak but undeniably thrilling affair. We’ll know for sure when it arrives on May 31.
Evergrey - Say
Powered by pendulous riffs and striding, puffed-chest choruses, Evergrey’s latest single Say is reflective of the brighter tone the Swedish band are trying to capture with latest album Theories Of Emptiness. That said, the band have never lacked for a sense of triumph in their music, but Say feels especially potent instrumentally, massive solos tipping the scale more towards arena-sized bombast.
Rezn - Collapse
Rezn might fall somewhere in the broad prog/doom sphere, but the meditative, decidedly Eastern-inspired guitars of Collapse also hint to a sense of transcendent otherworldliness that can’t be constrained to any one genre. Taken from new album Burden - out June 14 - Collapse evokes a sense of grandeur as if you’ve just discovered a long-forgotten, crumbling empire, seeding just enough mystery amidst the melodies to have the listener unsure of what will come next at any given moment.
Withering Surface - Denial Denial Denial
What says summer better than some primo black’n’roll? Well alright, probably a few things, but we won’t deny the greased-up riffs and blackened snarls of Withering Surface’s latest single Denial Denial Denial haven’t got us wanting to fire up the grill and crack open a cold one, the Danish band treading the line between Motorhead and Abbath with their own sense of flair.
Far From Refuge - Ghost Of Eros
We won’t lie - the first time we heard Far From Refuge’s Ghost Of Eros we thought we’d stumbled into some kind of space-time vortex back to the glory days of Myspace and late 00s metalcore. Such is the magic of nostalgia, and the sound of sweeping riffs and powerful melodic choruses might have fallen out of favour amidst metalcore’s slide towards everything from death metal to r’n’b and straight-up hardcore, but it still has a sense of potency that has us banging our heads with glee.
