Five videos. Five bands operating in completely different corners of heavy and loud, each one doing something the other four couldn’t. This week we’ve got an Austin trio weaponising nu-metal, trip-hop and avant-garde darkness into something genuinely menacing, a New York rock provocateur turning a family dinner into a full-blown rock opera, Long Island punk refiners who know exactly who they are and aren’t apologising for it, Florida noise rock veterans signing to a new home and arriving with a riff that could flatten a building, and a melodic hardcore institution returning after 16 years with something raw, honest, and worth every minute of the wait. Different tempos, different damage, different reasons to turn it up. That’s the week. Enjoy it.
Portrayal of Guilt, “Object of Pain” / “Death From Above“
The Austin trio have spent a decade building one of the most uncompromising catalogues in underground heavy music, and “…Beginning of the End“, their forthcoming fourth album due April 24th via Run For Cover Records, shows absolutely zero interest in making things easier for anyone. “Object of Pain” and “Death From Above” are the second wave of singles from the record, following “Ecstasy” and “Human Terror“, and together they map out a band genuinely unafraid of contradiction. Nu-metal, trip-hop, dark ambient, and teeth-gnashing hardcore sharing the same oxygen. It shouldn’t work as neatly as it does.
Both videos are part of a trilogy directed by Craig Murray, and the visual language matches the music’s refusal to sit still. Recorded and mixed by Phillip Odom between March and June 2025, with mastering by Will Yip, this is Portrayal of Guilt distilling a decade of fearless genre-corrosion into something that feels like a genuine reckoning. After the industrial detours of “CHRISTF*CKER II” and the classical reimagining of the “Devil Music EP“, a band this restless returning to raw intensity feels less like a step back and more like a coiled spring finally released.
PRE ORDER “…BEGINNING OF THE END” HERE
LISTEN TO “OBJECT OF PAIN” AND “DEATH FROM ABOVE” HERE
Des Rocs, “When The Love Is Gone“
Danny Rocco has always understood that rock and roll at its best is pure theatre, and “When The Love Is Gone” is the fullest expression of that belief he’s committed to tape yet. The New York rocker released the track on February 25th, and the video, directed by Noel Paul, frames it as an Italian-American family dinner descending into glorious, meatball-flying chaos, Danny leaping onto the table mid-interrogation and turning domestic agita into something closer to a Roman spectacle. It is completely ridiculous and completely brilliant.
The song itself hits with a density that justifies the drama. Classic Rock’s comparison to a heavier Muse fronted by Freddie Mercury is flattering but not inaccurate. What it misses is the industrial grain and the sheer swagger that make “When The Love Is Gone” feel like something built in its own image rather than assembled from influences. This follows “The Riders of Red Hook (Legends Never Die)“, dropped on March 6th and featured across the broadcast of UFC 326 Holloway vs. Oliveira, and “This Land“, the “Borderlands 4” videogame theme currently sitting at number 11 on the Mediabase Active Rock chart. Des Rocs has a full album coming in 2026 via Sumerian Records. The momentum is real and it is loud.
LISTEN TO “WHEN THE LOVE IS GONE” HERE
Koyo, “What I’m Worth“
Long Island’s Koyo are not interested in reinventing themselves. They said so plainly, and “What I’m Worth“, the second single from their sophomore album “Barely Here” due May 8th via Pure Noise Records, is the proof. Where lead single “Irreversible” bounced and glistened, this one churns, frontman Joey Chiaramonte‘s vocals burning over brooding riffs that push into genuine post-hardcore territory. Ten songs, 28 minutes, no filler, no detours. A band that has spent two years touring relentlessly, writing on a moving RV, and arriving at the studio knowing precisely what they wanted to make.
Produced by Jon Markson, who has worked with Drug Church, Drain, and The Story So Far, “Barely Here” carries the Long Island DNA proudly, the firecracker energy of The Movielife, the widescreen hooks of Taking Back Sunday, the grit of Silent Majority, but filtered entirely through a band that no longer needs to namecheck its influences because it has simply become itself. Guest appearances from Sammy Ciaramitaro of Drain and Marisa Shirar of Fleshwater add texture without diluting what makes Koyo worth following. “What I’m Worth” is two minutes of exorcism. It does exactly what it needs to do.
PRE ORDER “BARELY HERE” HERE
STREAM “WHAT I’M WORTH” HERE
Gouge Away, “Figurine“
South Florida’s Gouge Away have just signed to Run For Cover Records, and “Figurine” is the announcement shot, and what a shot it is. Recorded live to tape at Jackpot! Recording Studio in Portland with Larry Crane, the song is built on a riff that lives somewhere between Pixies and Pissed Jeans, massive and slightly unhinged, while vocalist Christina Michelle moves between roar and whisper with the kind of control that makes both extremes hit harder. New guitarist Theo Hartlett, of Ovlov and Pet Fox, co-wrote the track while the band were on tour last autumn, and it came together, by Michelle’s own account, with unusual ease.
The lyrics arrived in a single sitting during a tour drive, triggered by footage Michelle had been digitising of herself as a child, watching a younger version who made herself small to avoid disappointing anyone. That kind of self-recognition is difficult to write about without tipping into self-pity, and Gouge Away avoid that entirely. “Figurine” is honest without being indulgent, and the noise rock framework gives the vulnerability something to push against. After the acclaimed 2024 full-length “Deep Sage“, this feels like the beginning of something sharper. Run For Cover have a good one here.
Poison The Well, “Weeping Tones“
Sixteen years. That is how long it has been since Poison The Well released a studio album, and “Peace In Place“, out now via SharpTone Records, is the return. Not a nostalgia exercise, not a legacy cash-in, but a sixth full-length that earns its place in a catalogue that includes “The Opposite of December… A Season of Separation“, one of the most genuinely influential metalcore records ever made, and “You Come Before You“, which still appears on Metal Hammer’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the 21st Century. The bar they set themselves is genuinely brutal.
“Weeping Tones” is the video accompanying the release, and singer Jeffrey Moreira‘s words on the song are worth sitting with. It is about the slow erosion that comes from having to shrink yourself to avoid conflict, the quiet violence of self-suppression, and the decision to keep walking toward the people who matter regardless of the weight pressing down. The video holds both the struggle and the defiance without resolving the tension too cleanly. Poison The Well have always understood that the space between brutality and fragile beauty is where the most honest music lives. “Peace In Place” suggests they still know exactly where to stand. A Spring 2026 headline tour follows, with Converge supporting. Welcome back.
