It’s Friday, which means two things: giving the week the finger and new music! Tune in every Friday for The Pit’s round-up of new releases, from singalong hard rock to pus-drenched underground death metal. Keep those ears bleeding!
Red Fang, Arrows (Relapse)
For fans of: Kylesa, Clutch, The Sword
Standout track: “Fonzi Scheme”
Listeners who showed up for a good-timey stoner chug album, beware: Red Fang are doing some spooky shit here! Arrows will definitely give you the thicc riffs you so desire, but it’ll also bring the darkness, the melancholy, all the feelings that Frankenstein’s monster had when he first saw his reflection in the water. You definitely should take a bong rip and listen to this one, just be ready to exercise some weirder emotions than you might expect.
Atreyu, Baptize (Universal Music)
For fans of: A Day to Remember, Ice Nine Kills, blessthefall
Standout track: “Weed”
Man, Atreyu definitely aren’t resting on their laurels with Baptize. It would’ve been easy for the band to release a simple early-2000s throwback album and be all, ‘Metalcore is back, bitches.’ Instead, these guys have incorporated a bunch of pop-punk and electronic influences into this album, making it much more of a celebration than a memorial. Definitely more for modern metalcore fans than those dudes pining for the Affliction days.
Desaster, Churches Without Saints (Metal Blade)
For fans of: Midnight, Aura Noir, Toxic Holocaust
Standout track: “Hellputa”
Fuck, man, Desaster never disappoint. When you want black thrash that goes real goddamn hard on both the black and the thrash, these dudes show up, every time. Churches Without Saints just rips and roars and slaps the cigarette out of your mouth at every turn, simultaneously grand and snotty. These are the kinds of records we live for, the ones that make us just want to put on a sweaty leather jacket and kick a dent in a car. Fuck that Volvo!
Plaguestorm, Purifying Fire (Noble Demon)
For fans of: Himsa, Nightrage, Arch Enemy
Standout track: “Back to Zero”
Where the fuck have Plaguestorm been all our lives? The answer is Argentina, and damn if Purifying Fire doesn’t put that country smack dab in the middle of our metal map. This record harkens back to those metalcore albums you’d find between the Massachusetts weepers, the one that went harder in the metal, the evil, the death. It’s an impressive and deeply listenable record, the kind fans will find themselves returning to over and over. Wait, this is a one-man band? What the figgity fuck, dude?
Fluids, Not Dark Yet (Mystic Smellz)
For fans of: Mortician, Pissgrave, Portal
Standout track: “Dignity Swindled”
These days, goregrind bands often take a real party attitude — Look how drunk and high we are! Man, we’re crazy about horror movies! Not Fluids. On Not Dark Yet, the Phoenix-based band play churning, fuzz-infected death metal that sounds like it was made solely to soundtrack the violation of your severed head. It’s not pleasant, it’s not fun, and it’ll probably give you a pilonidal cyst (look it up). We love this.
Other crushers:
- Flotsam and Jetsam, Blood In The Water (AFM)
- Sojourner, Perennial (Napalm Records)
- Seputus, Phantom Indigo (Willowtip)
- Lycanthro, Mark of the Wolf (Alone Records)
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Words by Chris Krovatin
