Playlist for February 3 – 9, 2025
Quick playlist highlights: I’m going to start doing the playlists a little differently in the near future. Instead of making a new one each week, I’m going to have one single playlist that is continuously updated. I’ll keep the 100 most recently added songs on the playlist (so if I add 15 one week, that means the oldest 15 will be removed). This means that you won’t be able to go back and listen to a playlist from last year, which is a bummer, but I can’t have 50+ playlists crowding my Spotify anymore. Having random songs in all these playlists is also making it tough to tell which ones need to be on my “greatest heavy songs of all time” playlist that I’m still working on for you guys.
– Rivers of Nihil – House of Light. I am genuinely impressed with this song. I’ve been super tough on Rivers of Nihil in recent years because I think ‘The Work’ was terrible in comparison to ‘Where Owls Know My Name,’ which was my favorite album from 2018. Then, they lost their vocalist in 2022 and I wasn’t sold on their guitarist stepping up to scream. This song is giving me a lot of hope though. The atmosphere is similar to ‘Where Owls Know My Name’ and the clean singing is a nice touch.
– Synestia – Dies Irae. You should know about this band from the joint EP they did with Disembodied Tyrant last year. Super sick stuff. The vocal gymnastics are a little over the top, and I’d probably take Disembodied Tyrant over this, but it’s fun in small doses.
– Vicious Rain – The Devil & Lovers. This is a pretty cool Swiss band. This track sounds like a mix of some other well known bands, but I can’t put my finger on it right now. Maybe a hint of Secrets? The chorus really caught my attention.
– Imminence – Death Shall Have No Dominion. I didn’t think Imminence had it in them to be this heavy. Damn. Maybe reissuing their debut album reminded them that making heavy music is fun. The violin/symphonic elements are making me want to call this the metalcore version of Lorna Shore.
– Darko – Supra. The new album is great. The amount of music that these guys constantly pump out is ridiculous. They’re always evolving, but the acid-trip, technical insanity that makes Darko so special is still at the core of this album.
– Nasty – Iron Grip. I don’t feature a lot of beatdown/hardcore, but Nasty has been solid recently.
– The Crimson Armada – Ceremony. This release is labeled as an EP on Spotify, and the bundle of songs has an intro, but I’m hoping there’s more to come. This track features Levi Benton from Miss May I and is slightly more lowkey than the other songs The Crimson Armada has released recently. The guitars remind me a bit of early As I Lay Dying.
– Spiritbox – No Loss, No Love. I need to have an open mind. I need to have an open mind. I need to have an open mind. This song is good and the music video is very cool. It frustrates me that they are capable of making music like this and then spend half their time making whispery, alternative rock. A few heavy songs can’t carry my interest in an album. We’ll see how the whole thing fits together.
– Gutrectomy – Throne of Ashes. This might actually be a decent entry point for those who want to get into slam. Gutrectomy has a mix of genres so it’s not completely over the top. But yeah, still pretty wild.
– Tidebringer – Kage. Including these guys because their Spotify bio is “Make screamo pissed again.”