SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: HELLRIPPER, ABYSMAL DAWN, OMEGAVORTEX, OMNIVORTEX, SOULFLY, VALLETTA, ROTGUT, LOCUSTS AND HONEY

(written by Islander)

I spent more time than usual last night listening to heavy music and, unlike what often happens on Friday nights, I didn’t get destroyed (except by the music), so I felt pretty good upon awakening this Saturday. Which is why this roundup is as bulging as it is.

In my listening excursion I fell down a rabbit hole, not intending to, but that’s what falling down is about. Except this rabbit hole was like a steep and rapid descent (more jet-fueled than gravity usually powers), with a fuckload of fireworks and sharp edges on the way down, and who knew rabbits had such big teeth and vicious red eyes?

Or to put it more prosaically, there’s a ton of high-speed thrashing and vigorous battering ahead of you. At least until the end, when I indulged something very different, for people who don’t want to thrash their reproductive organs off today or otherwise get their craniums fractured and their grey matter whipped up in a centrifuge.

 

HELLRIPPER (Scotland)

Around here we were “early adopters” of Hellripper (the proof is here), which counts for exactly nothing unless the only way you get slaps on the back is to do it yourself. It’s relevant only because there has been pleasure in watching Hellripper evolve from James McBain’s solo project self-releasing its first EP to becoming a full live band and signing with Century Media Records for the release of a new album “around the vernal equinox of 2026.”

Last week Hellripper released a new single and accompanying video that features that live lineup (James McBain upfront of course, plus guitarist Joseph Quinlan, bassist Andy Milburn, and drummer Max Southall). The song’s name is “Kinchyle (Goatkraft And Granite)!“. As for what that signifies, McBain stated:

“Kinchyle” is the McBain clan’s war cry and a fitting first glimpse at the upcoming album.

Lyrically, the track was inspired by my experience growing up in the North-East of Scotland in Aberdeen (the Granite City), and reflects on what it’s like to feel trapped in a certain environment. I wanted to show a side of Scotland that is not necessarily the magical “postcard” that a lot of people picture when thinking of the country.

The song is a solid thrasher that rocks as well as races, packed with riffing that gloriously blares and swirls, fronted by caustic snarls, livid screams, and brazen yells of that clan war cry. But the song also takes an unexpected turn, becoming more sinister and slithering in an episode accented by a lilting acoustic guitar, before ramping up again toward a shred-tastic solo.

The single’s terrific cover artwork is by @ikosidio.

https://hellripperband.lnk.to/KinchyleGoatkraftAndGranite-Single
https://hellripper.bandcamp.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Hellripper1

 

ABYSMAL DAWN (U.S.)

It’s been a minute since we last heard from the L.A. death metal band Abysmal Dawn — and by “minute” I mean three years since their last EP and five years since their last album. But Charles Elliott and Co. are back with a new single and video, which is today’s next choice.

“Cradle of Affliction” quickly surges in a mad rush of fast-firing drums and rapidly darting riffage, then segues into viciously skittering fretwork and deathly roars. While the riffing and drumwork remain fast and furious in its alternating phases, Abysmal Dawn also deliver hard-slugging grooves, hellish screams, crazed bursts of high-flying sound, and back-to-back solos that sound like sorcerous ecstasies.

The new song and film should help draw attention to Abysmal Dawn‘s upcoming U.S. tour with Krisiun, Pyrexia, and Gorgatron. The single’s cover artwork is by Pär Olofsson.

https://linktr.ee/abysmaldawn
https://www.facebook.com/abysmaldawn

 

OMEGAVORTEX (Germany)

As compared to the first two songs in today’s collection, this next one from Omegavortex is uglier and more psychotically unhinged. Your first clue is the song’s name: “Dystopian Worldrape“.

The barnacle-encrusted riffing creates a dense swarming assault backed by hyper-speed beats and filigreed with shrill, shrieking guitar leads, but the screaming vocals are maybe even more furiously insane.

The music also stomps and brays, delivers enormous subterranean turbulence, and eventually explodes in a shrill, super-heated, mind-bending solo. Backed by a hammering groove, another solo creates a more reptilian menace, and then the song briefly slows and groans before generating another thrilling convulsion of screaming and battering lunacy.

The song is the opening track off a new Omegavortex album named Diabolic Messiah of the New World Order. It’s set for release on December 5th by Third Eye Temple. Bizarre cover artwork by Greallach Art.

(Thanks to Rennie from starkweather for passing me this one. Click that link and go see more of his recommendations.)

https://omegavortex.bandcamp.com/album/diabolic-messiah-of-the-new-world-order
https://www.thirdeyetemple.com
https://www.facebook.com/OMEGAVORTEXblackdeath
https://www.facebook.com/thirdeyetemple

 

OMNIVORTEX (Finland)

Of course I had to listen to the music of Omnivortex right after listening to that Omegavortex song, hoping that it would fit the vortextual headspace I found myself in. Lo and behold, it did! Let’s begin introducing it with the band’s own words:

The song started out with the idea of the main riff, and the whole song then evolves around the main theme. It’s also the first song for which we’ve had a guest vocalist, Tyler Sturgill of Xoth, and he did a killer job with the incantating! We also incorporated some synths for the first time in our music, for which we are really excited about.

Thematically, the lyrical concept for “Grave Upon Grave” is based on HP Lovecraft’s cosmic horror with some actual quotes from him. In general it deals with cosmic horror, the fear of the unknown and trying to gain a higher state of consciousness by dying and being reborn just to die again. Add some spells and incantations to the recipe and there you have it.

In this song Omnivortex thunder and race right out of the box, but the opening riff gleams and swirls in a way that sounds like the casting of an exotic spell, and it’s overlaid with synths that enhance and expand that magical and menacing aura. Following that attention-seizing overture, the music becomes more vicious and hard-charging, augmented by bellicose howls and eventually by guttural growls, but the swirling riffing remains a captivating presence.

The song also features a gloriously exuberant and technically impressive guitar solo, as well as a closing synth-led adaptation of the song’s main riff that shifts the mood in a much darker and more ominous direction (cosmic horror indeed).

“Grave Upon Grave” is the second single released from an upcoming Omnivortex EP, planned for a 2026 release.

https://omnivortexofficial.bandcamp.com/track/grave-upon-grave
http://www.facebook.com/omnivortexofficial/

 

SOULFLY (U.S.)

Let me get this out of the way right up front: I do not watch MMA on any regular basis. In fact, I might have only seen two matches in my entire life, only to grimly accommodate someone else I was with. There are so many ways it doesn’t fit me, the list would be long.

But fuck me, the way this next video started, I got hooked anyway. Mainly because of this line in the video by the initially defeated protagonist Nikolas Motta before the music starts: “God grant long life to my enemies… so they can watch my victories.”

Obviously, the song hooked me too. “No Pain = No Power” punches damned hard and drives with furiously pulsating riffs and Max Cavalera‘s ferocious snarls, while guest singer Ben Cook (No Warning) really sends the song into an emotional stratosphere. Speaking of guests, you’ll also see and hear Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares and vocalist Gabriel Franco of Unto Others further embellishing the song.

Cavalera also turns in a blistering guitar solo, joined by Cazares, to cap outbursts of percussive violence. But, especially at the end, the song has its mystical aspects as well, including tribal chants and drum accents, shimmering melodic flows, and Franco‘s haunting singing.

The song is part of Soulfly’s new album Chama, released yesterday by Nuclear Blast Records.

https://soulfly.bfan.link/chama.web
https://www.facebook.com/SoulflyOfficial

 

VALLETTA (U.S.)

So far we’ve had singles today, but my next choice is a complete EP released yesterday by the North Carolina band Valletta. Its name is Bitter Lucid Truth.

I’ve already gushed about one of the EP’s five songs, “Cold Death“, which is guaranteed to appear on my 2025 Most Infectious Song list (unless I pick one of the other four). Like that one, the other songs bring to the fore teeth-bared howls, dominating roars, crazed screams, skull-fracturing and spine-splintering grooves, and a panoply of riffing that’s as addictive as it is nasty.

Depending on where you are, the guitars feverishly throb, miserably wail, viciously jackhammer, ecstatically swirl, or dismally groan. Occasionally, you’ll hear fiery soloing that spirals high. The drums almost exclusively favor rocking rhythms, but they hit like tire irons and shotguns; together with the lead-weighted bass-lines, they’re convulsive muscle-movers.

This is the kind of music that might leave you hunting for black-and-blue bruises turning a sickly yellow. It’s also the kind of music that will fire up most people, and that most people will find really hard to get out of their heads.

Every damned song is quite memorable, including the surprising “Doing Well“, which dramatically slows, mournfully rings, and features gloom-cloaked singing (although it too eventually punches through walls, cruelly claws, and sends the singing up to the point of splintering), and the also-surprising closer “Spitting the Word“, which includes futuristic low-end throbs and high-end shimmers, plus blast-beat drumming, vividly ringing arpeggios, cruelly swarming riffage, moments of towering immensity, melancholy acoustic picking, and a tormented closing guitar solo that opens eyes wide.

https://orcd.co/valletta_stw
https://vallettalfr.bandcamp.com/album/bitter-lucid-truth
https://www.facebook.com/vallettanc

 

ROTGUT (U.S.)

I had already decided to listen to this band’s new video based on their name and the name of the song (“Bonemelter“), hoping it meant their music might line up with some of the throughlines of today’s roundup. And then I saw they’re from fucking Renton, Washington, a Seattle suburb that’s just a ferry ride and a short trip down the highway from where I live.

In the video, and I guess on stage too, they’re adorned in festive masks. 🙂 The video also includes clips from lots of b-horror movies. As for the music, it does line up very well with today’s main throughlines.

The drums kick up a quick storm, and although the riffing starts like a sinister presence, a solo soon flashes, swirls, and spirals in electrifying fashion. It’s an exhilarating way to start, and Rotgut don’t ever let you down from there. They add in rabid snarls, bear-like barking, and gang yells, as well as fretwork that defiantly blares, maniacally swarms, viciously skitters, and throbs like blood spurting from a freshly opened vein.

“Bonemelter” is from Rotgut’s EP 24 oz Cantrip, released in June of this year.

https://rotgutofficial.bandcamp.com/album/24-oz-cantrip
https://www.facebook.com/p/Rotgut-61576181446297/

 

LOCUSTS AND HONEY (UK)

I struggled with how to end this column. On the one hand, the temptation was great to include another hell ripper of a song, feeding the turbocharge in my head. On the other hand, I felt like maybe I’d gone far enough in that direction. But mainly I felt like today was a good day to renew my spastic tradition of throwing a curveball at anyone who makes it to the end of one of these collections.

This song, “The Night Sea-Journey,” is from a forthcoming EP named Shadow of My End that Hypaethral Records bills as its last release of 2025. They sum it up as “over 22 minutes of biting and bellicose atmospheric blackened doom, interspersed with more restrained passages, both achingly sad and haunting in equal measure.” They further recommend it for fans of Coltsblood, Mizmor, Dragged into Sunlight, and Corrupted.

I’m completely sold on “The Night Sea-Journey“. It has a very daunting but wholly enveloping start, a mix of slow stomping beats, brilliantly searing and dismally churning riffage, and caustic screams that are almost buried by the immensely heavy low-end weight and the higher-range abrasion.

The music seems to both massively groan and to crackle and burn, like some boiling vat of acid and grit. The music ominously looms like impending catastrophe, but also seems to cry out in the upper elevations like devastated spirits with no hope of release. It slowly crashes and emits screeching feedback and shrieking torment.

In all ways, it’s powerfully devastating and engulfing, a rendering of harrowing calamity that by the end does prove to be haunting and desolate too.

https://hypaethralrecords.bandcamp.com/album/shadow-of-my-end
https://www.facebook.com/p/Locusts-and-Honey-61573170027669/