Out today: JOLIETTE - Pérdidas Variables

Pérdidas Variables, the new album by Mexico City post-hardcore dynamo Joliette, is out today on Persistent Vision Records.

A pillar of the Mexican scene, the quartet takes the urgency of screamo and laces it with brooding, post-metal grandeur. The band has stated that the new album is a meditation on their home of Mexico City. Vocalist Gastón Prado screams in his native Spanish yet his earnest voice transcends language barriers, transmitting universal angst.

Stream the album, here: https://joliette.bandcamp.com/album/p-rdidas-variables-2

Pre-order the album, here: https://persistentvisionrecords.com/products/joliette-perdidas-variables-lp

"In classic screamo fashion, Joliette are able to convey that sense of longing and beauty with music that scans as harsh and aggressive on the surface. If you find yourself gravitating towards heavy/beautiful stuff like Envy, Deafheaven, and Touché Amoré, make sure you’re keeping your ears peeled for the new Joliette album."
–BrooklynVegan

"Founded in 2011, Joliette has long operated in the blurry space between emotional hardcore, chaotic screamo, and post-metal—moving with the surgical heaviness of bands like Cult of Luna, while channeling the raw urgency of groups like Raein or Saetia. On Pérdidas Variables, the quartet once again pulls tension from opposites: chaos and order, collapse and control, private loss and collective trauma."
–Idioteq

"A rabid post-hardcore onslaught... Progressive and twisted but always charging forward at full fucking force."
–Louder

"A kind of revelry, bursting at the seams with energy. The drums set up a vivid clatter; the big bass-throbs feel like the pulse of the earth beneath our feet; the guitar sizzles and slashes through the tumult in piercing and sometimes stridently dissonant tones; the high-pitched hardcore vocals spray blood."
–No Clean Singing

Photo by Alejandra Juangorena

HEAVY HALO - "Bloodrush"

HEAVY HALO: alt-industrial alchemists channel Depeche Mode on new single "Bloodrush"; summer tour with Light Asylum announced

Heavy Halo has revealed new single "Bloodrush" from its forthcoming album, Damaged Dream.

Stream the track, here: https://youtu.be/RWHCUqkZqEg

Pre-order the album, out July 25th on Silent Pendulum Records, here: https://silentpendulumrecords.com/collections/heavy-halo

Based in New York City, Heavy Halo is the duo of vocalist/guitarist McKeever and producer Gosteffects. Working out of Spellsound Studios, located inside a historic, 19th-century Brooklyn hospital building, the pair meld metallic guitars, frenetic beats, and yearning vocals into industrialized alt-rock anthems for the next generation. Reference points include Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, and HEALTH. 

New Noise describes the new single, "Bloodrush," as "a pulse-pounding, fast-paced industrial rock track that brings together the power of rock, the slickness of electronic elements, and McKeever’s clean, crisp vocals."

McKeever states: "'Bloodrush' embodies everything we want a Heavy Halo song to be: shot through with adrenaline and sexuality and searching for an alchemy of industrial noise and melody. We took a cue from our heroes Depeche Mode’s 'Enjoy The Silence' which warns about how words can ruin the moments of intoxicating desire... 'Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm.' But because we lack British charm, we expressed it way less elegantly: 'Don’t talk just touch, don’t think just fuck.'"

Heavy Halo will tour the East Coast in July with darkwave powerhouse Light Asylum. Purchase tickets, here: https://linktr.ee/lightasylum_heavyhalo_tour

July 15 - Brooklyn, NY @ TV Eye
July 16 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Dolphin
July 17 - Baltimore, MD @ Mobtown Ballroom
July 18 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Spirit
July 19 - Richmond, VA @ Cobra
July 21 - Raleigh, NC @ Kings
July 22 - Washington, DC @ Pie Shop
July 23 - Medford, MA @ Deep Cuts
July 24 - Providence, RI @ Gettie’s
July 25 - Kingston, NY @ Tubby’s
July 26 - Montreal, QC @ Cabaret Fouf’s

Photo by Tori McGraw

PYGMY LUSH - "It Wasn't a Compliment (Martial Law Blues)"

PYGMY LUSH: reunited Pageninetynine offshoot releases rocking new single "It Wasn't a Compliment (Martial Law Blues)" from long-lost masterpiece "TOTEM"

Virginia collective Pygmy Lush has revealed new single "It Wasn't a Compliment (Martial Law Blues)" from its upcoming album TOTEM.

Stream the song, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uZQh9q87VE

Founded in the mid-2000s as an experimental offshoot of the band Pageninetynine, Pygmy Lush has existed as an outlier from the start, following no script, with output ranging from Pageninetynine-caliber screamo to fragile Americana. After a long hiatus, the band is active again, making recent appearances at festivals such as Roadburn, Dark Days Bright Nights, and Prepare the Ground.

Recorded with Converge's Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio in 2016, TOTEM was initially shelved by the band and never saw the light of day until now. The album will finally be released for the first time, July 11th via Persistent Vision Records. Pre-order the album, here: https://persistentvisionrecords.com/products/pygmy-lush-totem

Although it was recorded nearly a decade ago, TOTEM is a monumental work of art that feels absolutely fresh and vital in 2025. A feast for the ears and the heart, TOTEM is an engrossing display of musical freedom, backed by authentic emotion. There are songs that rage, songs that rock, and songs that cruise hypnotically. From bruising noise rock, teetering on the edge of hardcore, to meditative refrains that roll along like trains through moonlit valleys, it moves in its own ways, unhindered by genre.

Pygmy Lush guitarist Mike Taylor describes the new single, "It Wasn't a Compliment (Martial Law Blues)," as "a noise rock grunge laden punk ripper by a bunch of punkers who were on a steady diet of Sebadoh, Born Against and Nirvana in 1994" – a contrast to the album's first single, the lush, melancholy "February Song."

With TOTEM set to be released to the world on July 11th and effectively closing the book on that chapter of the band's history, Mike Taylor states: "Yes, we will be writing new music ASAP."

Photos by Elulu Photos

CAR BOMB - Tiles Whisper Dreams

CAR BOMB: extreme metal innovators celebrate 25th year with new EP "Tiles Whisper Dreams"; first single "Paroxysm" streaming now; tours of Europe and Australia announced

Founded in 2000, Car Bomb celebrates its 25th year with the August 1, 2025 release of new EP Tiles Whisper Dreams.

Consisting of three new tracks, Tiles Whisper Dreams is the band's first new music to be released since 2019's Mordial album.

Stream the EP's first single, Paroxysm," here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIiw_IzJZFM

Pre-order the EP, here: 

https://carbomb.bandcamp.com/album/tiles-whisper-dreams

In a genre built on shock and awe, it is tough to be shocking or awe-inspiring these days. With metal in its sixth decade, making an impact is an increasingly difficult feat. The ceiling is red with the blood of straight-line shredders futilely competing for the attention of desensitized ears.

Car Bomb is that rare metal band that has found a pathway through the ceiling – a wormhole, if you will – and has occupied a position of radical transcendence for a quarter-century now. In its 25 years of existence, the New York City-area quartet has been sculpting its own signature sound and cementing its identity as an outlier, above the fray, inspiring a legion of younger musicians in the process.

Car Bomb's sound is that of perpetual transformation: a spiraling flurry of rhythm and texture that congeals, fleetingly, into planet-pulverizing death-grooves and fragments of haunting melodies. Baffling rhythmic modulations and deep-space guitar effects appear to warp time completely. Disorientation is the rule, not the exception. 

"Their psychotic turbo-thrash is disgustingly disorienting," reads one Kerrang! review. "One relentless onslaught of time-chopping violence."

A Stereogum review describes the style as "a rhythmically abstruse variety of extreme metal... hallucinatory time-stretching."

Car Bomb guitarist Greg Kubacki puts it like this: "When someone asks me what we sound like, I always ask them ‘what’s the heaviest band you listen to?’ and then I say it’s either 10x, 100x, or 1,000x crazier than that, depending on their answer. We aspire to create our own style of heavy music by bending everything: the notes, time signatures, tempos, sonic quality of the guitars, etc. We’re always pushing and pulling everything, ripping ideas apart and then squashing them back together. And as a result our songs might sound chaotic at first, but as they progress the patterns, grooves, and motifs embedded inside all of the mangling and warping will reveal themselves and evolve in unexpected ways. Most people won’t get that deep into our stuff and will just hear a pile of noise, which is fine with us. We’re creating the kind of music we want to hear and that’s all we care about.”

"Paroxysm," the first single from the new EP, Tiles Whisper Dreams, reveals a revitalized Car Bomb, seemingly chomping at the bit with all the fury of a band half its age. "This is our first release since before COVID," states Kubacki, "and we really tried to put our 100% into these songs." 

In under 3 minutes, the aptly-titled "Paroxysm" delivers a barrage of semi-automatic drum-fire and viscous guitars, conjoined in inscrutable patterns. Vocalist Michael Dafferner mostly roars but lets his singing voice shine in one brief, glistening moment. The song is about "the never-ending struggle with power and control," he says.

One could spend weeks trying to calculate the twists and turns of Car Bomb's compositions but, zoom out, surrender to the chaos, and there is another experience to be had: complete catharsis. While there is joy in trying to dissect the elite chops and maniacal arrangements that Dafferner, Kubacki, bassist Jon Modell, and drummer Elliot Hoffman put forth, there is also joy in reveling in the ineffable, unknowable spaces their confounding music explores. The fact that this band continues to explore, 25 years in, makes it one of the real treasures of today's metal scene.

Drum tracking and vocal pre-production for Tiles Whisper Dreams were done at Silvercord Studio in Queens, New York, the studio owned by Joe Duplantier of Gojira. Kubacki describes Silvercord as "our home away from home." Guitars, bass, and vocals were recorded at the band members' respective home studios. The album was mixed by Johann Meyer at Silvercord and mastered by Grammy Award winner Ted Jensen (The Eagles, Green Day).

Car Bomb will tour Europe and the UK in August, including dates with Gojira, Between the Buried and Me, and Imperial Triumphant, followed by a September tour of Australia, supporting Animals as Leaders – Car Bomb's first time ever in Australia.

Aug 7 - Jaromer, CZ @ Brutal Assault Fest
Aug 8 - Berlin, DE @ Cassiopeia
Aug 9 - Karlsruhe, DE @ P8
Aug 10 - Utrecht, NL @ Pandora *
Aug 12 - Oberhausen, DE @ Turbinenhalle Δ
Aug 14 - Nottingham, UK @ Rock City Beta
Aug 15 - Bristol, UK @ ArcTanGent Fest
Aug 16 - London, UK @ Oslo
Aug 18 - Copenhagen, DK @ Vega #
Aug 19 - Stockholm, SE @ Bar Brooklyn #
Aug 20 - Oslo, NO @ Goldie #
Aug 21 - Aalborg, DK @ SH35 #
Aug 22 - Kiel, DE @ Kieler Schaubude #
Aug 23 - Haarlem, NL @ Complexity Fest #
Sep 12 - Adelaide, AU @ Hindley Street Music Hall ∞
Sep 14 - Brisbane, AU @ The Tivoli ∞
Sep 18 - Melbourne, AU @ Forum ∞
Sep 19 - Sydney, AU @ Enmore Theatre ∞
Sep 21 - Perth, AU @ Magnet House ∞

* = Between the Buried and Me
Δ = Gojira
# = Imperial Triumphant
∞ = Animals as Leaders

Tiles Whisper Dreams tracklist:
1) Blindsides
2) Paroxysm
3) Tiles Whisper Dreams

Lineup:
Michael Dafferner - vocals
Greg Kubacki - guitar
Jon Modell - bass
Elliot Hoffman - drums

Discography:
Tiles Whisper Dreams (2025, Self-Released)
Live in Santa Cruz (2023, Self-Released)
Mordial (2019, Self-Released)
Meta (2016, Self-Released)
w^w^^w^w (2012, Self-Released)
Centralia (2007, Relapse Records)