With so many limbs splintering nd intertwining off the muscular bodies of hardcore and metal right now, it becomes more difficult by the year to firmly categorize many of the artists across their respective scenes. 2022 punctuated the fact that we are in a golden age of it all, with everything from fast, violent hardcore traditionalism, the weightier grinds of metalcore, more melodic detours in emocore and litecore, as well as bleed over into the realms of shoegaze, grunge, and noise rock. At the end of the day, it’s all pretty heavy, but these are the albums that rose to the top of the pit…

Anxious – Little Green House [Run for Cover Records]

Anxious are the kind of emocore band that make everything familiar sound new again through a young set of eyes while adding their pages to the story of it all as well, and with their debut full-length Little Green House, they bust down the door already sounding like one of the biggest bands out there through a promising middle ground between learning well from Title Fight’s melodic intensity and the punk-pop perfectionism of major label success stories blink-182 and Jimmy Eat World.

The Callous Daoboys – Celebrity Therapist [MNRK Heavy / Modern Static]

Celebrity Therapist prescribes to you the state of our current culture’s most toxic energy and excess in one room, but it’s for your own good. Using the Callous Daoboys as the conduit for these procedures, it’s a means of exorcising the worlds ills from your psyche through the Atlanta collective’s gloriously over-saturated approach to grinding metalcore, skull-splintering math rock, an experimental et al. of pop, noise, funk, and blues, and a healthy amount of Hot Topic emo sleaze that confronts hypocritical principals of dogma and existential bedlam.

CANDY – Heaven Is Here [Relapse Records]

The title of CANDY’s debut album Heaven Is Here alongside its gory artwork are too true, because in the version of Heaven which some disgusting strains of people here in the United States envision it looking like, it’s arrived and it’s akin to a living Hell. This is the perfect feeding frenzy for the kind of inspo which the bi-coastal heavy music band nourishes their art from with their intensity refined by producer Arthur Rizk, as they take extremities from hardcore and metal into account in their search for a so-called salvation, leading the brain through a distorted journey full of anxiety-pressed confrontations with the self encapsulated by grizzled riffs, blasts of drums, and blistering electronic noise.

Cave In – Heavy Pendulum [Relapse Records]

To say Cave In have come back swinging harder than ever would be a colossal understatement in describing the impact Heavy Pendulum weighs in with. The Boston metalcore pioneers, backed by Stephen Brodsky’s ascendant navigations over big riffs, metal spliffs, psychedelic transmissions, and throttles of fast hardcore, muscle up their axe-wielding antennas toward space, challenge the black hole void at its own game, and destroy it from the inside.

Chat Pile – God’s Country [The Flenser]

Splattered noise and unfiltered disgust color over endless blue skies in all of its putrid colors of human feces excreted from hypocrisy and the blood of the wronged, painting the picturesque American horror on Chat Pile’s unforgiving debut full-length, God’s Country. In stepping directly onto the turf of what wicked mankind creates, the Oklahoma four-piece feed off and project the devoid through a sludgy mess of guitar slop and atom-smashing drums that would probably elect to destroy all matter and usher in the extinction of us if they truly could for all our dumbass follies.

Cloakroom – Dissolution Wave [Relapse Records]

“Dissolution Wave is a concept – a space western in which an act of theoretical physics – the dissolution wave – wipes out all of humanity’s existing art and abstract thought.” Concept albums often incite groans, but Cloakroom have created a timely document of sonic soothsaying in theirs as it arrives during the throes of streaming giants’ imbalance of artist payouts and further collapse within the industry. The third full-length effort from the heavy Indiana shoegazers brings that concept visibly into our reality, having discovered their own equilibrium in compressing dense atmospheres explored within their early listens into tangible matter.

Cold Gawd – God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here [Dais Records]

The conversation surrounding modern shoegaze is nothing new, but Cold Gawd is ensuring that the world keeps talking as the band brings the genre to an entirely different level from an outside view. Led by Matt Wainwright, Cold Gawd’s breakthrough sophomore effort, God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here, is a collision of heavy shoegaze, hardcore, and R&B affliction that sinks its head in deep, and touches bliss amid the turmoil from the perspective of a Black artist standing out in a white-washed scene who knows those depths.

dazy – OUTOFBODY [Lame-O Records]

James Goodson was raised on hardcore and as a publicist, knows the ins and out of where it’s been and where it’s going. While his one-person project dazy isn’t explicitly heavy-edged, he maintains as much a bite in big decibel and big anthemry with feedback-piled power-pop-punk that’s an absolute blast on his proper debut full-length, OUTOFBODY, pairing existential punk pessimism with sunblinded hooks that harken back to the more alien vibes of the ‘90s alternative dial bleeding into the black-clad edges of the pit.

Drug Church – Hygiene [Pure Noise Records]

No matter the medium, Drug Church vocalist Patrick Kindlon is in no shortage of big, combustible thoughts to blow minds to, and on the band’s long-awaited sophomore effort. Hygiene, he alongside their solidified lineup of a fully fleshed and muscled force with guitarists Nick Cogan and Cory Galusha, bassist Pat Wynne and drummer Chris Villeneuve sound massively scaled to turn miles of cities into parking lots.

EXCIDE – Deliberate Revolver [New Morality Zine]

The debut full-length from the Carolina quintet EXCIDE is exhilarating and practically full-formed in as one of the most pronounced statements in new heavy music, as it perpetually chugs with a might of melodic riffs that teeter between the cosmic craters of Cave In’s spaciest stage dives and the grungy terrain of Quicksand’s alt-rock-adjacent post-hardcore. In introducing their own layers of metallic flair-ups and fluctuating impact into those folds, EXCIDE break through their own atmosphere that excitedly leaves much to still explore.

fleshwater – We’re Not Here to Be Loved [Closed Casket Activities]

fleshwater’s debut full-length, We’re Not Here to Be Loved, bleeds a reverence for pioneering ‘90s alternative and metal ranging from heavy splatter of the Deftones and Hum, the electronic atmospheres of Björk and Portishead, and the more metallic-leanings of early Smashing Pumpkins under the embossed studio hands of Converge’s Kurt Ballou, yet the band featuring members of Vein.fm and MIRSY also look beyond the timeline of that era by channeling genuine oddity through hardcore blastbeats, rogue electricity, dynamo synths, and an eerie co-vocalist spectacle.

High Vis – Blending [Dais Records]

High Vis’ sophomore breakthrough effort, Blending, hears the London quintet continue to sonically merge three opposing lanes of musical styles between its gruff, hardcore foundation, the melodicism of Brit pop, and shimmering ‘80s post-punk, all while positioning themselves at the epicenter of a collision course with their surrounding socio-political landscape and dealing with your own daily life shit amidst all of it.

Inclination – Unaltered Perspective [Pure Noise Records]

The debut full-length from the Kentucky five-piece – which shares two members from kindred hard-hitters Knocked Loose in guitarists Peter Katter and Isaac Hale – delivers intentional intensity that hits the core of our everyday existences. Led by vocalist Tyler Short, Inclination come to the narrative with straight edge ethos devoid of any preachy vibes, call out entities in our society that poison the people (with big pharma and the ongoing drug epidemic coming under the most fire) and extend an empathetic awareness for personal struggles which take too many down prematurely.

KEN mode – NULL [Artoffact Records]

NULL, the eigth studio effort from KEN mode, makes for the perfect bookend to the aforementioned Chat Pile’s end-times noise rock barrage from the veteran end of the spectrum. Since ‘99, the Canadian band has been gestating the world’s horrors within their sound, and on this go, the decorum for the collapse of mankind and existential pile-ons injects brass chaos courtesy of newest member in multi-instrumentalist Kathryn Kerraround around their metallic shards. There’s no way of dodging the horror they see coming.

Mindforce – New Lords [Triple B Records]

Mindforce only keep getting better at their barrage. On their sophomore follow-up to their 2018 breakthrough, Excalibur, and last year’s heavy-handed Swingin Swords, Choppin Lords EP, the Hudson Valley crew’s weaponizing of hardcore with metal motifs has been refined to its most exacting plan of attack yet, running 10 tracks through 17 minutes in a stealth speed cardio workout mode led by Jay Peta’s charged up vocal lead and the ensuing breakdowns – while still falling down like metallic axes and hammer – calling for bigger revolutionary anthems in their battle against societal waste.

Praise – All In A Dream [Revelation Records]

Praise have been amiss for a few years, with only one album in 2016′s Leave It All Behind, some EPs and singles to their name, but their return on their second full-length effort, All In A Dream, is perfectly on time. Across nine consistent modern hardcore knockouts, the listen is a document to where life has led its membership and the worn wisdom that carries into their sound – A personification of vocalist Andy Norton’s own darkness and light, anxieties and letting go, and ultimately, his anthemic reminder to keep hanging on.

Punitive Damage – This Is the Blackout [Atomic Action Records]

While Punitive Damage includes three members of Regional Justice Center, the politically torched powerviolence band led by Ian Shelton, the Vancouver band’s breakout effort dares you not to compare their motives or experiences to anyone but their own. This Is the Blackout is personally confrontationally hardcore for those who prefer its ugliness kept intact, with the effort being produced by tough-as-nails God’s Hate guitarist, Taylor Young, and putting an emphasis on life from the margins, smashing power structures, and devouring the rich with a bladesaw aggression.

Regulate – Regulate [Flatspot Records]

Regulate are a band who are no doubt going to benefit from the Turnstile effect on modern hardcore going on right now. The straight edge four-piece out of New York have a knack down for hard-hitting, melodic hardcore that pops for an anthem, but as showcased on their promising self-titled debut LP, they’re also pushing pits beyond their boundaries by incorporating the rhythms of Latin music into the beat. Regulate is not only their formal introduction, but it’s their way of putting a mark all their own on the scene with everything they’re about.

Show Me the Body – Trouble the Water [Loma Vista Recordings]

Show Me the Body’s audacity to push hardcore beyond its bounds and bleed into other scenes across their releases has been objectively novel, but Trouble the Water is where their ambitions with a no fucks attitude collects into one reservoir, with frontperson Julian Castwan Pratt stepping forth from the murky, grimed atmospheres of previous efforts as a cataclysmic punk vocalist whose barks fuel confrontation onto the hard-scraping societal callouts he rips to the forefront.

Sonagi – Precedent [Get Better Records]

Precendent, the debut album from the Philly screamo next-gens Sonagi, which consists of Closer’s Ryann Slauson in spoken word and sung vocals, serves to recognize traumas, grief, anxieties, and every weight this ugly world has to offer, and goes one step further in repairing its damage through extreme sonic therapy. The torch engulfed before them in headwound trailblazers like Orchid, Thursday, and Touché Amoré kindles in these seven tracks, yet Sonagi reinterpret the genre’s chaos as a meditative duality between naturistic violence and its aftermath.

Soul Blind – Feel It All Around [Other People Records]

Soul Blind’s debut full length, Feel It All Around challenges the notion that modern heavy-gazers lack the emotional depth of the bands from ‘90s alternative rock lore they cull influence with contemporary measure. Produced by Will Yip, the Hudson Valley five-piece dig harder into matters far beneath the surface as one of the loudest pieces of hardcore-adjacent art rumbling out of our modern pandemic era, reaching into the despair of their already-downtrodden surroundings and trying to find a way out of it into a world where mental reckoning can quiet itself. Call it (heavy)gazing into the abyss, but in this case, very much doing the most to not let the abyss gaze back at you…

SOUL GLO – Diaspora Problems [Epitaph Records]

As their first album released as part of Epitaph Records’ legendary punk roster, the third full-length effort from Philly hardcore band SOUL GLO ups the ante in pressing audience’s brains against the wall and bleeding their ears to see beyond what’s fed to you on the surface and go deeper with the dissection of everything around you whether you can even relate to walking in Pierce Jordan’s shoes or not. That doubles their own sound, too, which across 12 livewire, air-tight tracks, is dense with stylistic swerves that furthers SOUL GLO’s message not only in intensely provoking thought and action but inspiring the art their music can barely be contained within, too.

SPICE – Viv [Dais Records]

On their 2020 eponymous debut, SPICE proclaimed themselves as pain. The pain never subsides, but the Los Angeles group comprised of members of CEREMONY, Sabertooth Zombie, Creative Adult and an x-factor in electric violinist Victoria Skudlarek learn to not only live, but thrive with it on their sophomore follow-up Viv in an allbum fully realized in its vision of post-hardcore wrestling against shoegaze static and indie rock impressionism from production and texture to anxiety and release, reflecting the human experience.

Vein.fm – The World Is Going to Ruin You [Closed Casket Activities]

The World Is Going to Ruin You, and not just because it’s the truth, but that’s the energy of the devastation Vein.fm create on their sophomore effort. To anticipate some level of destruction from the Greater Boston area metalcore band was a known following 2018′s breakthrough debut Errorzone, but this album also hears the band hungry to maximize it while scaling the levels of ungodliness in their heavy artillery where they may be able to push the genre beyond its comforts with influences of industrial, electronic, and modern post-hardcore.