(written by Islander)
In yesterday’s segment of this list I was explaining about the challenges I face in preparing it. Even though not one solitary soul asked me to do that, I knew you were hungry for the information — though maybe I was sensing a desire for pita bread and a big tub of hummus or a rack of ribs, and I just misinterpreted things. Desires don’t always reach me through the ether in their original form.
Anyway, I mentioned that one of the challenges was figuring out how to group together songs in these daily segments. Even within my odd mind there’s no particular rhyme or reason to many of the groupings, but sometimes there is, and today is one of those times. The first and third songs below just rock the fuck out, and even the one in the middle felt like it belonged, albeit for somewhat different reasons than rocking the fuck out.
All three of these songs were ones I was convinced I’d have to find a place for in this list from the first time (of many times) I heard them.
VALLETTA
When I first heard Valletta’s “Cold Death” I knew I’d need to recommend it to our visitors. And when I did, I explicitly added that it took me about 10 seconds to put the track on my list of candidates for this Most Infectious Song list.
A bit later, I also gushed about the EP as a whole that includes it — Bitter Lucid Truth. But until readying the post you’re now reading, I somehow overlooked that after the EP’s release the band coughed up a video for “Cold Death“, and honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about the video.
As for the song, there’s no way it was staying off this list. As I wrote before, I really don’t think the trick that Valletta pull off on “Cold Death” is an easy achievement, and “trick” is therefore probably the wrong word. What they’ve managed to do is write a song that has hard-rocking and reflexively muscle-moving grooves, hook-laden riffs that vividly throb, and a screaming, sky-flying guitar solo — but at the same time they’ve made the experience menacing and even hellish.
The fiendishness of the music derives from the song’s insidiously squirming guitar-leads, the beastliness of Keenan Carroll’s rabid screams, voracious serrated-edge howls, and noxious gagging — and that solo too. And a song that makes you want to yell “Cold Death!” right along with the vocalist isn’t really all that safe.
As for the video, well it’s pretty damned funny. And I’m not exactly sure how I feel about it because’s it’s pretty damned funny, and there are no demons in it, much less the Grim Reaper.
https://vallettanc.bandcamp.com/album/bitter-lucid-truth
https://www.instagram.com/vallettanc
https://www.facebook.com/vallettanc
LACABRA
In part because I live in the Seattle area, I’ve been able to follow the progress of Lacabra from their inception, and even before that when three of the members were in Locistellar, including being in the audience for live shows (which have always been killer). They’ve put a lot of effort into gigging and spreading the word about themselves, and it seems to have paid off because, finally, Lacabra released a self-titled debut album last year via M-Theory Audio.
The album is chock-full of songs that could belong on this list. I wrote about a bunch of them here individually. I guess one reason why I settled on “Enemy” is because it came with a video that gives a good sense of what it’s like seeing these dudes in the flesh on stage.
As I’ve written more than once, Lance Neatherlin is a charismatic frontman, and the video shows why. He’s also got a viciously commanding voice. As for what goes on around him, Lacabra deliver piercing, sinister leads, savagely swarming and feverishly bursting riffs, and gut-busting grooves. The song also includes devilishly good soloing that kicks the song’s already high adrenaline quotient even higher.
In short, it’s a very cool display of Lacabra’s hybridizing of blackened death metal, groove, and guitar-centric rock from many decades past (my head got flashes of Thin Lizzy and Maiden, but yours may latch onto something else).
https://lnk.to/lacabra
https://lacabrametal.bandcamp.com/album/lacabra
https://www.facebook.com/lacabrametal
MANTAR
When Mantar introduced their 2025 album Post Apocalyptic Depression Hanno Klänhardt said that he and his bandmate Erinc tried to “destroy” what they’d built up on the album before this one by doing “everything different,” including stripping back the size and clarity of the production. He said, “There is a certain beauty in disappointing people’s expectations.”
My guess is that in some ways Mantar succeeded in disappointing the expectations of some fans, though I didn’t waste any time surfing the web to find out for sure. Their latest record isn’t my own favorite of their works, but I still thought it was fun — fun being the most operative word. And fun is the operative word for the song I knew I’d have to add to this list — “Rex Perverso” — and the video that accompanied it.
To quote Hanno again: “The title roughly translates to ‘king of the perverts,’ a title apparently worn with pride worldwide.” You want groove? You want grit? You wanna get scorched (but with a few bits of airy melody as balm)? You want to see Hanno and Erinc wearing shirts for a change instead of stripped to the waist (well, mostly)? Well, dive on in!
https://mantar.bandcamp.com/album/post-apocalyptic-depression
https://www.mantarband.com
https://www.facebook.com/MantarBand