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 title track is “New Heaven” by Inter Arma.
You have to hand it to Inter Arma. For a band considered “cursed,” the Virginia sludge metal group continues to push forward despite a constant barrage of setbacks: band turmoil, near-death experiences, creative doubts, a pandemic.
In the press release for their newly announced album, new heavenInter Arma describes an enigma of feeling “also metal or non-metal enough” for its target audience – a very relatable problem for any metal musician who is familiar with the elitism that can sometimes undermine the scene. There's a sense of cathartic frustration in the album's lead single and title track, as if the band are clearing away all of this baggage in the form of their most complex and extreme songwriting to date.
Approaching dissonant death metal in places, the song evokes an arid, otherworldly landscape, not unlike the cratered, moon-like surface depicted on the LP's sleeve, and is suffocatingly brutal in every aspect (particularly , the complex “nonsensical” rhythms of drummer TJ Childers).
“new heaven “It is the culmination of four years of adversity ranging from near-death experiences, multiple member changes and, of course, a global pandemic,” Childers said.
It sure seems like it. It is a cruel, boiling sludge of metal, stretched to the point of breaking.
Honorable mentions:
Accept – “Humanoid”
Metal legends Accept announce their new album humanoid this week, sharing the AI-themed title track and lead single. The track offers many dystopian themes for a metal band like Accept. Fittingly, the German veterans imbue their signature classic heavy metal sound with clean, power-metal/thrash technicality, the latter echoing the modern sci-fi aesthetic of their latest full-length work.
CNTS – “I will not work for you”
CNTS is a new punk group formed by guitarist Mike Crain of Dead Cross, drummer Kevin Avery (Retox, Planet B) and vocalist Matt Cronk (Qui). The band has a debut album ready to release on Ipecac Recordings, where CNTS's sardonic sense of humor and garage hardcore will be at home. The first single and LP, “I Wo n't Work for You,” features the band's sound and Cronk's distinctive delivery: his vocal take sounds like it was recorded straight from the practice space. While some producers would scoff at such a move, it adds a level of reality and credibility that is virtually absent in much of modern, studio-sterilized punk rock.
Shot Down – “Blind Faith”
It was a tough choice between Inter Arma and Knocked Loose for the top spot this week, mainly because both bands took a similar approach to their new material, essentially pushing the furthest limits of each band's respective genre. For Knocked Loose, this means hardcore that is bent, twisted and warped into a kind of nu-metal/post-hardcore/metalcore hybrid, as heard on “Blinding Faith.” Brian Garris' heartbreaking vocals are front and center, backed by an arrangement that's as aggressive as it is complicated, rife with instant tempo changes and an urgency that borders on the manic.
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