I recently ran a poll on my Instagram story asking whether people ever actually checked Spotify's charts and sponsored playlists - from around 30+ responses, only 10% of people said they did. I've only recently become part of that 10%, mostly because as one of the two metal music directors for KAMP, I have to bring new releases to share each week, but to be honest, I've found Spotify's "official"/"sponsored" playlists to be really lame! For example, Spotify's "All New Metal" playlist has occasionally been useful to me - but right from the start we have a problem: Spotify's description for this list says "This week's best new metal & hard rock tracks." Why are they putting Hard Rock music on the Metal playlist? Surely there's enough artists out there to separate these genres into their own lists. Additionally, most of what appears on this list falls within the same few sub-genres of Metal week after week - I've been checking it once a week since around August 2023 and the vast majority of what I'm hearing is Metalcore, Death Metal, Epic Metal, and Thrash Metal. Metal definitely has its own issues with excessive categorization and sub-genre gatekeeping, but all that aside, as a fan of everything that falls under the Metal umbrella I'm disappointed by Spotify's selections.
I recently found this community-run playlist titled New Hardcore 2024, compiled by user Jens Vse (shout-out to you!!) and I've been finding so many sick new bands over this past month. I wanted to focus this post on highlighting some of these groups and encourage all of you to do some digging to find the more "grassroots" playlists that are out there for the genre(s) you love!
First up, I wanted to share this new single from Florida hardcore band LockedUp titled ENEMY (© $outhern $moke, Released 2/9/24) This song goes so incredibly hard, and I can't believe they've only got around 700 monthly listeners! When I shared this track at our KAMP meeting last week, I described the band as the openers at a show that no one's heard of who end up playing better than the headliners (lowkey, this happened last year when Jesus Piece absolutely tore 191 Toole to shreds right before Show Me the Body went on iykyk). This track has the kind of pre-breakdown that will have you looking like this, absolutely terrified of what's coming next:
Next up, I wanted to share this new EP from Minneapolis hardcore punk band BUIO OMEGA titled DIVA MOMENT (Self-Released, 1/28/24) Buio Omega currently has around 2,000 monthly listeners, and this EP has everything you could want out of a hardcore punk project: outspoken lyrics, sick riffs, and badass cover art. I'm particularly a big fan of the track names on this list, particularly "I Wanna Crash My Car (On Purpose)". I'll definitely be on the lookout for any of their future tours, I just know they would go so crazy live!
Lastly, I wanted to share this new EP from West Texas hardcore band Tiger Splitter titled Deadliest Game (Self-Released, 1/17/24) They've got around 2,600 monthly listeners right now, and I'm mostly hyped on this release because of how insane the track Chess is. Only one word can be used to describe their sound - CHUNKY. If you are a fan of hardcore music in any capacity, please do yourself a favor and check this out, I guarantee you won't be able to hold back from stank-face and headbanging.