Single Slam: Imperial Triumphant, Stick to Your Guns, Indevth, White Crone, Within Destruction, Vanitas, Halflives, Sometime in February, newshapes, and Cabal!

Today’s single slam features Imperial Triumphant, Stick to Your Guns, Indevth, White Crone, Within Destruction, Vanitas, Halflives, Sometime in February, newshapes, and Cabal. You can read our thoughts about the latest singles from these bands below.

Imperial Triumphant – Hotel Sphinx

Avant-garde metal trio Imperial Triumphant have released a new single with an accompanying video – ‘Hotel Sphinx’. Taken from their upcoming sixth LP ‘Goldstar’, which will be released in 2025 via Century Media Records.

Imperial Triumphant comment:

The ‘Entertainer extraordinaire’ leads a gullible audience through the sinister halls of the ‘Hotel Sphinx’. Behind the lights, cameras, and endless action lies a disturbing undercurrent—where power is fed by the innocence of youth. The lines between entertainment, initiation, and exploitation blur as a conspiracy of silence reigns in the ‘Illuminated Valley of the Kings’, where political celebrity celebrates death. Rites of passage too dark to speak, promising false salvation in a world where the show never ends.

As avant-garde as ever, but also a bit goofy (especially if you watch the video), Imperial Triumphant continue to prove that they are one of the most unique bands in the world. As weird as it is chaotic, but with mind-bending aspects of catchiness, it starts to resemble something more psychedelic as it goes on. The kind of madness that is par for the course with this band.

Stick to Your Guns – More Than a Witness

Hardcore quintet Stick to Your Guns will release their ferocious new album ‘Keep Planting Flowers’ on 10th January via new label SharpTone Records. The band have now dropped new single ‘More Than a Witness’.

Kind of going back to their roots here, Stick to Your Guns deliver a blazing short and sharp blast of melodic hardcore heaviness here. The intensity of the verses matched by a chorus that has melody and catchiness, but still holds plenty of aggression. Then, boom, along comes a breakdown and what was pretty good before, becomes even more special. Check it out here.

Indevth – Hellbound

South England’s fast rising metalcore band Indevth have shared their brand-new single, ‘Hellbound’.

Talking on their new single Culverwell shares:

‘Hellbound’ is all about letting go and not giving a fuck about what anyone says, I struggle quite a lot with my confidence and have quite a lot of social anxiety, so for me this song is about saying fuck it, I’m going to be me regardless of what anyone says. Which in itself is a very freeing realisation. ‘Hellbound’ is one of my favourite songs I’ve written and I’m gassed by everyone to hear it.

One of the most exciting bands in the UK, Indevth continue their immense rise with a track that, well, putting it simply, it goes f**king hard. Building up the intensity, smoothly moving between sinister effects and ugly heaviness, all while the vocals spit venom. It’s dark, and come the end, it’s truly savage.

White Crone – The Conscript

The Conscript’ is the newest single from the bewitching visionary that is White Crone. The track combines elements of progressive and power metal, depicting a sombre conversation in an unnamed medieval village between a mother and her son, as he faces conscription into war. Lisa Mann, the front woman of White Crone, dedicates this song to all conscripts, and those brave refuseniks who risk it all to not participate.

A very powerful listen, notably because of the immense vocal performance of Lisa Mann, but also because of the lyrical content and the underlying thickness of the instruments. That the majority of this track is all the work of one person is startling, and if this proggy power-infused track is any indication of what the White Crone’s new album holds then we can all be very excited. Check it out here.

Within Destruction – Kanashibari

Slovenia’s most awesomely audacious and genre-defying metal act, Within Destruction, have unleashed their brand-new single, ‘Kanashibari’, a blistering and immersive dive into the dark and mysterious world of sleep paralysis and ancient Buddhist deities.

Speaking on the track, drummer Luka Vezzosi shares:

The lyrics depict the inability to move your body while experiencing vivid hallucinations, claustrophobia and horror your mind and body endure in a semi-sleep statis. Sound-wise ‘Kanashibari’ represents a heavier side of the upcoming LP. We were following the same formula from our last two records which means there’s a lot of electronic elements being used to support the heavy instruments. The only thing we changed this time is we also tried to incorporate some of the 90s nu-metal sound which we feel like worked out really well for this song.

One of the more unique bands in the world, Within Destruction are pros at genre-bending, but even they sometimes like to just scale it back and deliver a brutalising modern metalcore listen, which is exactly what we get here. Nothing more, nothing less, and it’s really bloody good. Check it out here.

Vanitas – Wait & See

Vanitas, the cinematic djent metal band, round-off a successful year of releases with their newest single ‘Wait & See’. An epic anthem, exploring the duality of excitement and anxiety of trusting an unknown future.

What an incredible year it has been for Vanitas, and it gets even better with the release of this new single. One that explodes out of the blocks with some heavy guitars and vocals, before changing direction to be a more epic effort, controlled by a chorus that soars both vocally and instrumentally. It’s fantastic, especially the way we get these bursts of progressive chaos. Roll on next year and what comes next from this brilliant band.

Halflives – perfectly broken

Italian pop rocker, Halflives, has released an empowering new single, ‘perfectly broken’. Spreading a message of self-acceptance, this high-energy anthem kick starts a whole new era for Halfives mastermind Linda Battilani as she embraces the sounds of her youth and the roots that led her to become a musician.

Shares Halflives:

I wanted to take an empowering approach to this song and it turned out to be something I like to call happy emo. The lyrical meaning focuses on embracing your own pain and scars, accepting yourself with all your flaws, failures and bad days. This is the message I’d like everyone to take from the song. We’re broken and that’s fine. We fail, and that’s fine. We’re only human after all. We fail, we learn, we get up and we try again, broken but wiser than before.

The term ‘happy emo’ is certainly an apt one as Halflives new single is sunny and peppy, with a likable anthemic quality to it. The wonderful vocals working well with an infectious pop rock rhythm and light melodies, this is one that will get stuck in the head for some time. Check it out here.

Sometime in February – Outside In

US-based rising instrumental progressive metallers, Sometime in February, have launched a brand new single titled ‘Outside In’. This track will feature on the bands as-yet-untitled InsideOutMusic debut, which they have just finished recording, and will be released in Spring 2025.

The band comments:

Outside In is one of Sometime in February’s proverbial kitchen sink tracks. There’s a little bit of everything we are in it. It takes us high in the mountains and back to sea level multiple times throughout its runtime. It’s heavy, melodic, and ever so complicated, making it increasingly unpredictable as it goes on. It’s also one of our few current seven-stringed guitar songs, and we always add a little more elbow grease in our songs featuring them.

A fascinating listen, Sometime in February have some unique ideas within their instrumental progressive sound and it results in a surprising amount of emotion. This track, interesting and varied, oozes melody to the point where it almost slips into post-like territory in places and provides a thick layer of atmosphere without pushing effects. It’s a track that just gets better and better the more you hear it.

newshapes – sick of breathing

Themes of self-loathing, loneliness and feeling contempt beat at the core of a conversation with myself, the new EP from Scottish alt-rockers newshapes, due out on April 18th in 2025. Accompanying the announcement of their upcoming new EP, newshapes have also shared a new single, with the soaring new track ‘sick of breathing’ following on from the recent single, ‘the rain’.

Speaking about the new single newshapes vocalist Ian Mann comments:

I remember confiding in a close friend that my life was so numb and empty that I felt like I had nothing new to write about. I hadn’t allowed myself to feel through it and channel it into music, and this song was the result of pushing myself to do just that. It wasn’t until I started writing it that I began admitting to myself that maybe I wasn’t feeling this way through boredom, but that I was actually lost in my own life and had been using the idea of some external mundanity to retain some sort of fake confidence in where I found myself.

A pretty, heartfelt, and memorable pop-infused rocker that has elements of emo about it, alongside the overpowering smell of alternative thinking. All of which is utilised in the best way possible as newshapes have crafted a track that puts a soft smile on the face as the emotion within it oozes out. Check it out here.

Cabal – End Times

Danish deathcore heavyweights Cabal have announced their second album ‘Everything Rots’ with the new single ‘End Times’. ‘Everything Rots’ features 13 brand new tracks and shows once again what the hardest band in Denmark is built for – brutal deathcore! The album will be released on 11th April via Nuclear Blast Records.

Singer Andreas Bjulver comments:

‘End Times’ is our soundtrack to the end of the world, it’s fast and agressive and marks a new era of Cabal and the announcement of our next album ‘Everything Rots’. We are back and we are angrier than ever.

The best of Cabal is often when they’re feeling furious and willing to spew vile heaviness into the ears of every listener. Which is good news for us as this new track is them at their angriest. Delivering a crunchy and chunky fast-paced deathcore blast of heaviness that has some groove. Enjoy the sound of unmitigated fury.