Wipe the blood from your teeth and get in the pit: itâs time for a recap of this weekâs best hardcore, metal, and punk rock. Spring is upon us, the flowers are in bloom, and it’s the perfect time to get amped up on some new heavy tunes. Looking for some new death metal to bring into your life? Got you covered. Need some grindcore to get your wedding reception off on the right foot? Say no more. Strap in, kiddies; itâs time to rock.
Full of Hell only need 58 seconds to melt your freaking face off. “Deluminate,” the first single off of their upcoming album Trumpeting Ecstasy, is a grindcore masterpiece. This track will blast the flesh from your bones and leave you with nothing more than a bleached skeleton and soul that has been thoroughly rocked. “Deluminate” isn’t breaking the mold for the band, as it is exactly what we expect from Full of Hell: dark, fast, and vicious. If the band’s split with Nails late last year whet your appetite for bloody grindcore, Trumpeting Ecstasy will hit your sweet spot. Crank this song and bum out your entire office. Demoralizing and caustic, Full of Hell are not for the faint of heart.
Pallbearer are driven by big riffs and thoughtful melodies. Their sound is expansive and enveloping. Listening to their new album is like going on an epic journey, and the band’s new music video for the song “I Saw The End” is a visual representation of that. It’s equal parts cheesy and ambitious. The majority of the time we’re watching a strange, cloaked warlock enslave a bunch of dudes. The warlock gives these primitive people the gift of sight and then makes them build a bunch of pyramids. That’d be weird enough, but the video also features a coked-up executive screaming into his employees’ faces. And there’s a White House press conference at one point. Yeah, weird stuff, we know. Still, there’s something so awesome about the low-fi, throwback quality to this video. Bands don’t make epics like this any more; it’s something that Led Zeppelin would have done late in their career. We can’t help but love this stuff and we adore Pallbearer’s huge presence. This band rocks.
Only Fucked Up would release a 24 minute hardcore song. The latest edition to their “Year of” series of singles/albums is Year of the Snake and it’s comprised of two songs that together total about 30 minutes. That’s a lot of Fucked Up, which is okay because we really, really like Fucked Up. The title track has all the anger and intensity of your standard Fucked Up number, but also rolls through some electronic noise-pop territory and bizarre feedback loops. It’s 24 minutes long, guys: you can’t just play melodic hardcore for 24 minutes, because you have to break it up and get a little weird, which is exactly what Fucked Up does. They get a little weird. Really weird, actually. Trance inducing weird. Drink some nighttime Theraflu and listen to “Year of the Snake.” It’ll take you to a weird place and you’ll be thankful for it.
Casey is a pretty aggressive post-hardcore band. Their album, Love Is Not Enough, is filled with tons of anger and raw emotion. Casey is also a thoughtful, spacey band. These two sides often play against each other throughout the album, pulling the listener back and forth from mournful melody to sonic chaos. It’s an awesome duality and the band does it very, very well, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to slow down and wallow in a dark beauty for a track or two. “Darling” is an example of this; a slow, brooding number that ends in fiery, reverb-soaked guitars. It’s a grief stricken number, perfect for a dark Summer evening. The video is a simple and haunting story that, like the song itself, ends in fire and darkness. Check it out below.
There’s not enough horror punk in the world, right? There’s a true void in that department. Fortunately, Slimy Member are here to slip in and deliver the goods. This band makes ugly punk rock that sounds moist and tender; there’s nothing showy or overproduced about it. It’s punk rock the way punk rock should be. At the same time, it’s got a gothic element to it. Slimy Member is a horror show, in a good way. You could see them opening for Misfits in the early ’80s. This album is killer; there is not an ounce of bullshit on it. Just straightforward horror punk that stings like a bloody lip.
Holy crap, this new Mastodon song rules. This the meanest track these guys have done in years. It still has the harmony and bright tone of recent Masoton tunes, but there is something down and dirty about the hardcore shredding that is laced throughout “Andromeda.” There is so much riffing here that it borders on too much. The guitars are just dancing and toying with you, a constant barrage of licks and fiery grooves. The contrast of snarls and catchy singalongs is perfection; the careful  balance of this song is staggering. Mastodon still has it, guys. They’re still the emperors of metal and we’re honored to worship at their feet.
That’s it for this week, folks. Hit us up in the comments with the punk rock, hardcore, and metal that’s ruling your world right now.
Image:Â Full of Hell/Profound Lore
Gif:Â Toei Animation
Benjamin Bailey writes for the Nerdist and can be found on Twitter talking about Godzilla, comic books, and hardcore music.