One up-and-coming alt-rock band to keep an eye on is Eye Ra Haze, a female-fronted group from New York that combines the eight string guitars and floating atmospherics of Deftones with the melodic cadence of Chevelle. The group are releasing a new EP Eye Of The Storm in the coming weeks, and in preparation, the group are releasing a series of vlogs and guitar playthroughs which will be posted exclusively to Heavy Blog!
Fans got a surprise this week when Deafheaven pre-orders went live. If you pre-ordered the album, you got a high quality digital download instantly ahead of release. If that’s not an incentive, I don’t know what is. Now those of us not committed enough to purchase something before giving it a test drive first can get a taste of the post-black metallers’ opus over at Pitchfork!
Scale the Summit are one of my favorite instrumental acts, simply because they’re able to consistently deliver a near perfect blend of melody and technical prowess that just excites me. I’ve always referred to Scale the Summit as “adventure music,” making a brilliant soundtrack for road trips or idle game playing; let me tell you, playing Minecraft with Scale the Summit is a pretty blissful experience. The band’s new album The Migration looks to really up the ante with the whole whimsical soundtrack sort of thing so far, especially in the band’s new track ‘Atlas Novus.’
‘Atlas Novus’ may very well be my favorite StS song ever so far, simply because it changes things up in some ways for the band. There’s some new tones being explored by the band, and the writing is just fantastic throughout. The pairing of Scale the Summit with producer Jaime King is apparently a glorious one! Stream the track below:
The Migration will be available on June 11th via Prosthetic Records. Pre-orders here!
- JR
Despite whatever I may have said about post-black metal’s sense of homogeneity (oooh, tremolo picking and blast beats!), the sound can be extremely heart wrenching if done with sincerity, confidence, and just the right amount of affect. Deafheaven manage to do this adequately, and if you’ve ever seen the band live, you know the kind of passion these guys put into performing their beautifully haunting black metal compositions, especially frontman George Clarke, whose intensity truly sells the show.
I was actually aware that Canadian grinders Fuck The Facts were working on anything new, but, fuck it, this is great news. The band have released a new track ‘L’enclume Et Le Marteau‘ (which roughly translates to ‘The Anvil And Hammer’), from their upcoming EP Amer, and naturally it slays. For a band that are known to be a staple of the grindcore genre, they sure take the genre approach and twist it viciously, mixing in mid-tempo grooves and some surprisingly catchy and melodic riffs alongside the traditional sheer blastbeat fury that is a cornerstone of the genre.
I had no idea that sludge powerhouse Black Sheep Wall were putting out a new EP, especially because it feels like it hasn’t been that long since they released their album No Matter Where It Ends to much acclaim. I don’t know where I’ve been, but not only are the band putting out a new EP titled It Begins Again, but it is now available for streaming. What a lovely surprise to wake up to under this rock of mine!
Last week we informed you that Karnivool‘s new album is done and will see an anticipated summer release. Along with the announcement, the band promised the release of a new song that the band have been performing live called ‘The Refusal’ would be available. The song is now available for free download, and it’s surprisingly heavy. There’s some screaming and pretty aggressive riffing going on, which sounds great in the context of their prog rock sound. The song’s production’s a little weird though. Perhaps it’s unmixed/unmastered? I certainly hope so anyway. Stream the track below!
And that song is beyond awesome, and is easily my favorite song they’ve done so far. My affinity for this new track ‘Raped in Hatred by Vines of Thorn‘ doesn’t stop at its subject matter, but the song’s somewhat nostalgic view of classic melodic death metal brought into a contemporary context is really quite brilliant. The song is ridiculously catchy with the right amount of tech; that solo for instance is just blissful. Stream it here courtesy of Revolver.
There’s endless debate over how to appropriately tackle the problem of album leaks and piracy these days. Some bands and labels ignore the problem and continue on with the press hype machine as if nothing happened. Some bands and labels react actively by seeking out and destroying download links and uploads wherever they may form. Arguably, the best way to go about fighting a leak is to do it constructively by turning the wave of interested fans into legal streams, a trend which is becoming increasingly common. Tesseract‘s new album Altered State isn’t due out until the end of the month, but following a leak this past weekend, their label Century Media opened up the album for streaming on Youtube.
However, the most constructive way I’ve seen a leak tackled was by emo/post-hardcore band The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die and their label Topshelf Records, who responded to the leak of the band’s new album Wherever, If Ever by going ahead and releasing the album a month early. Woah!
August Burns Red are one of the few metalcore bands that keep me intrigued. Though I wasn’t much of a fan of Leveler, I think Constellations is one of the best albums of the genre and completely set a new bar for it. I’m super excited for their upcoming record Rescue And Restore as are quite a few of the writers here, and today the band gave us a first glimpse of the record with their single ‘Fault Line’. And it’s awesome. It’s both heavy and melodic, with some of the best guitar work I’ve heard from the band. There’s even some clean vocals on this track, and they fit in quite nicely with the rest of the song. If this is any indication of how the new album is going to sound, I’m even more stoked. Rev up your excitebikes, ladies and gents!
