Playlist for March 31 – April 13, 2025

Quick playlist highlights: This is the third week that I’m using the new playlist format. From now on, instead of making a new playlist 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).

– Shadow of Intent – “Feeding The Meatgrinder”
Yes! What a sick lead single to announce their new album, ‘Imperium Delirium,’ which is slated to arrive on June 27. This track features George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, the vocalist from Cannibal Corpse. It can’t be a coincidence that they’re featuring Corpsegrinder on a track with “Meatgrinder” in the title. Shadow of Intent seems to be furthering their journey into death metal. There are fewer symphonic elements compared to their earlier material, but I’m pumped to see how this album turns out. The end also sounds very similar to effects we’ve heard from Humanity’s Last Breath.

– Shields – “I Just Feel Hate”
Really happy to see that Shields is mounting a comeback. Their 2018 album was super underrated. Also, their vocalist is the grandson of Stanley Kubrick (the Director of The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and a bunch of other movies). Fun fact: Shield’s vocalist is featured on Ice Nine Kills’ song titled “Enjoy Your Slay” which is about The Shining (the movie his grandfather made).

– Humanity’s Last Breath – “Anthracite”
Massive. I can’t believe Buster and Calle create music like this while prepping the new Vildhjarta album. There are very few people on their level.

– Heaven Shall Burn – “My Revocation of Compliance”
I have such a soft spot for Heaven Shall Burn. Their new album titled ‘Heimat’ comes out June 27. This track reminds me a lot of their earlier material from the 2000s. It’s kind of like old school melodic death metal. If you’re trying to break out of listening to cookie-cutter, breakdown bands, listen to Heaven Shall Burn. Their 2008 album is one of my all-time favorites.

– Woe, Is Me – “Here’s To Me (A Story To Tell , Pt. 2)”
I had to double check because the screams don’t sound like Michael Bohn (the original screamer of Woe, Is Me and Issues), but yeah, it’s him. I also didn’t realize until just now that Hance Alligood was the original singer of Woe, Is Me (although he left before their first album, which, as we all know, has Tyler Carter as the clean vocalist). Wow, so the two original vocalists, the original rhythm guitarist, and the original keyboard/programmer are all back together. They’re also joined by the lead guitarist that was in the band for the longest amount of time. So this is basically the original line up of Woe, Is Me, which is pretty cool (and the total opposite of how Attack Attack’s name has been hijacked by a bunch of outsiders). This track is kind of cheesy and is obviously trying to build off the first “A Story To Tell” where they called out Tyler Carter and the other Issues members in 2012, but it doesn’t seem targeted at anyone so I’m not seeing the connection. Seems clickbaity, but whatever. I honestly wish the best for them – if they can do anything like ‘Number[s]’ again they will immediately become a top 10 metalcore band.

– Scowl – “Not Hell, Not Heaven”
This new Scowl album is crazy good. It’s so different from everything else I’ve listened to this year. I don’t even think this song has any screams (which a lot of them do), but I don’t care, I love the chorus and the overall tenderness of the vocals against the punk backdrop. I just want to give Scowl credit for leaning into the female aspect of their sound and finding their own way to be heavy rather than trying to blend in with every other male-fronted band and giving “We’Re HeAvY ToO GuYs” energy.

– Orthodox – “Sacred Place”
Love the groovy vocals here. Reminds me of a heavier King 810. Their new album comes out June 6.

– Static Dress – “face.”
Dude, I love Static Dress. I found their 2022 album too late to include it in my album of the year list for that year, but I’ve gone back to it so many times. This track has everything I want to hear from them. The early Underoath vibes are so good.

– Allegaeon – “Chaos Theory”
These guys just released a new album and has some great death metal with technical aspects mixed in. It’s their first album after their original vocalist rejoined the band.

– Babymetal – “from me to u”
It’s kind of crazy that Babymetal and Poppy each have more than 3.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, which is at least ten times more than every single band I’ve talked about so far (except for Scowl, who they only beat by 8x). Again, instead of conforming to the male-ness of heavy music, Poppy and Babymetal undoubtedly lean into their female appeal (Babymetal is literally kawaii metal), and it has greatly benefited them.

– Sedative – “Romeo”
Fight music with fun samples. If you like Strangled or Orphan, you’ll like these guys.

– Knosis – “Shinmon”
In case you missed it, this is the new band of Ryo Kinoshita (previous vocalist of Crystal Lake). It’s crazy how easily you can tell that it’s him. This is the best Knosis song I’ve heard so far.