Heavy Song of the Week is a Heavy Consequence feature that breaks down the best metal and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, the theme song is “The Black Curtain” by Gatecreeper.
It's refreshing to hear a band's new single and witness a tangible evolution in sound.
Arizona's Gatecreeper emerged about a decade ago among a number of like-minded death metal bands seeking to revive the spirit of the genre's early '90s heyday: the vile, catchy worship of Scott Burns. They were one of the bands that continued to rise even after the pre-COVID OSDM boom, and while many of their peers continued to hone that classic sound, Gatecreeper seems to be growing. of That, in a good way.
That's not to say that their new single “The Black Curtain” isn't death metal. It certainly is: Chase H. Mason's guttural low-frequency vocals are (pun incoming) a dead giveaway. But this track in particular has a tight, bouncy chord progression that would be at home on a Lamb of God-style groove metal song or even one of Alice in Chains' more metallic moments. Similar to how Turnstile took hardcore and injected it with appeal, Gatecreeper manages to make this more than just your average death metal song, even accessible, without sacrificing the genre's recognizable aesthetic.
Honorable mentions:
Marty Friedman – “Enlightenment”
Shred fans rejoice: guitar virtuoso Marty Friedman is back with a new album, titled Drama. The former Megadeth/Cacophony guitarist previewed the LP with the elegant lead single “Illumination,” a sprawling piece that touches on the many angles of Friedman’s musicality. It's nice to hear him in Cacophony mode, for lack of a better term, where he's weaving a modern classical piece through the electric guitar. There are enough climatic moments to satisfy their more metal-inclined fans, but it's also clean enough to perk up the ears of classical music listeners.
Hot water music – “Remnants” feat. Brendan Yates and Daniel Fang of Turnstile
Hot Water Music might have the most star-studded heavy album of the year on its hands. Almost all the tracks in votes features a notable guest collaborator, and this week the post-hardcore veterans unveiled the single “Remnants” featuring Turnstile's Brendan Yates and Daniel Fang. It marks a coming full circle moment as Turnstile took his band name from a 1997 Hot Water Music track, and Yates and Fang help lift the song with subtlety, the former through backing vocals and the latter with additional percussion.
Six feet under – “Not knowing anything unpleasant”
Six Feet Under has been stuck in something of a creative wilderness at times over the last decade, that is, retreading old ground by re-recording old material (and not necessarily improving on it). But then vocalist and bandleader Chris Barnes tapped his former Cannibal Corpse bandmate, guitarist Jack Owen, for the 2020s. Nightmares of the broken, and the results were much more inspiring. Barnes and Owen collaborated once again on the next following album, Kill for revenge, and the misanthropic opener “Know-Nothing Ingrate” is possibly the best song to bear Six Feet Under's name in years. No doubt inspired by the hard-hitting thrash of Kreator and Dark Angel, the song hits that sweet spot between thrash and death metal that the aforementioned bands covered decades ago. Barnes and company powerfully fly that same flag of aggression.
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