Music

There will always be another peak to summit and boundary to break. END stretch their second full-length offering, The Sin of Human Frailty, beyond its very limits with a fierce commitment to unwavering unpredictability and uncompromising intensity. The New Jersey quintet counts producer and guitarist Will Putney, vocalist Brendan Murphy, guitarist Gregory Thomas, bassist Jay Pepito, and drummer Matt Guglielmo among its ranks. These musicians deliver a concentrated barrage like no other on, The Sin of Human Frailty [Closed Casket Activities].

END initially materialized during 2017. The group’s From the Unforgiving Arms of God EP spawned the fan favorite “Necessary Death,” and lead to a signing with label Closed Casket Activities. Highlighted by “Covet Not” and “Absence,” the band bulldozed the senses with their 2020 full-length debut, Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face. Brooklyn Vegan hailed “Pariah” as “an absolutely filthy dose of modern metalcore,” and Kerrang went as far as to describe their Debut LP as, “catharsis fed through a distortion pedal and shaped into a dense, destructive wrecking ball” Perhaps, Invisible Oranges put it best, “These gentlemen have come together to summon a fury seldom heard on any album from the realms of hardcore, grind, and black metal…”

In 2023, the members congregated once again to write and recorded what would become this sophomore release. “Part of the goal was to do things our way,” states guitarist Will Purney. “We didn’t want to lean on our influences too heavily, whether it’s in terms of production, guitar tone, arrangement, or other elements. We were like, ‘Let’s just make a record that sounds like END’. I feel like there’s more of an identity to the band than there has ever been on this record.” The final result is a unique blend of HM2 driven Grind and Metallic Hardcore cross over with moments of Industrial chaos over ten tracks. Featuring guest vocal appearances by J.R. Hayes (Pig Destroyer), Debbie Gough (Heriot) and Dylan Walker (Full of Hell), this Graphic Nature Audio recording clocks in over 30 minutes of unhinged aggression and grind.

Produced and engineered by Will Putney and featuring the art of Alex Eckman-Lawn, this release pushes the complexity of END both sonically and visually. Vinyl comes packaged in a ten panel die-cut jacket, pressed on deluxe colored vinyl and with a digital download code.

Track Listing:

01. A Predator Yourself
02. Gaping Wounds of Earth
03. The Sin of Human Frailty
04. Thaw
05. Embodiment of Grief
06. Twice Devoured Kill
07. Worthless Is The Lamb
08. Hollow Urn
09. Infest
10. Leper

1. Covet Not
2.  Pariah
3.  Absence
4.  The Reach of Resurrection
5.  Fear for Me Now
6.  Hesitation Wounds
7.  Captive to My Curse
8.  Evening Arms
9.  An Apparition
10.  Every Empty Vein
11.  Sands of Sleep

Track Listing:

1. The Long Goodbye
2. Death Instinct
3. Born To Be
4. Think Twice
5. Two Stood Last (See You Around)
6. Eyes To HEaven
7. Right To Profit
8. Turn The Screw
9. Crisis of Faith
10. -Endgame

Produced, Engineered & Mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit Recording Studio. Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. Photography by Kylla Barsell, Artwork by Thomas Toye and Layout by Martin Stewart.

Death waits in the wings for all of us. Ironically, it might be the only certainty in life. Nevertheless, we live anyway, squeezing meaning out of each day. Deadbody face this existential truth head-on with a barrage of death metal, grind, and hardcore as unrelenting as it is undeniable. The San Fernando Valley quartet—brothers Taylor Young [vocals, guitar] and Colin Young [vocals, Bass], Miles McIntosh [guitar], and Jorge Herrera [drums]—storm out of the gate with an intense vision befitting of our encroaching collective demise on their 2022 debut album, The Requiem [Closed Casket Activities].

“The idea of the album is the death and mourning of not only an era, but the ego,” notes Taylor. “Regardless of your output, status, goals, failures, or otherwise, the last thing you do is rot or burn. You can’t take any of it with you, so there’s no point in getting hung up on petty details. It sounds bleak, but it’s also meant to be freeing. Let go and move forward.”

The musicians initially breathed life into Deadbody during 2020. The members had made their bones in the underground with Taylor a sought-after producer and member of Twitching Tongues, God’s Hate and Zous as well as former drummer of Nails, Colin in God’s Hate and Twitching Tongues, Miles in Apparition, and Jorge in ACXDC and Despise You. They wrote and jammed over the course of the next two years, recording in Taylor’s studio The Pit in Van Nuys. Creatively, they nodded to the likes of Human Remains, Discordance Axis, Burnt By The Sun, Assuck, Brutal Truth, and Suffocation.

Track Listing:

1- Tempered by Mercy

2- Without Honor

3- Wound Eternal

4- Joy of Torture

5- )}][{(

6- Horrors of the Malformed

7- The Requiem

8- Dead Body

Formed in Savannah, Georgia from the remains of metallic hardcore band Vatican, AGONIZE represents a return to rawness that hardcore demands. Their latest EP, Highest Form releasing through Closed Casket Activities, eschews the over-production dominating modern metal in favor of capturing the visceral energy of a band wanting to tear a room apart performing right in front of your eyes. 

Produced by Jeremy Martin, AGONIZE tracked their latest offering with an emphasis on preserving the human element, deliberately avoiding click tracks and excessive editing to maintain the natural grit that defines their sound. Highest Form showcases the band's ability to craft memorable metal-influenced hardcore while maintaining a deliberately ugly, unrefined aesthetic that harkens back to the genre's roots.

Drawing inspiration from the likes of Meshuggah, Pantera, and Terror, AGONIZE crafts songs that balance technical prowess with deliberate restraint, avoiding the trap of overcomplicated riffs that lose sight of their core impact. Songs like opener “STRANGE REFLECTION” incorporates big metal riffing with rhythm that undeniably belongs to hardcore. Closing track “IN THE VACANT LOT”  hints at future creative directions, incorporating atmospheric elements that expand their sonic palette without compromising their fundamental heaviness.

Beyond the music, AGONIZE extends their creative vision through DIY-filmed music videos shot on vintage equipment, producing horror-influenced visuals that feel like something the viewer shouldn’t be watching. Each member brings creative influences from outside the music world into Agonize's visual aesthetic, incorporating elements from horror films, video games, and graphic art, while vocalist Spencer Guerrero's work as a tattoo artist directly shapes the band's distinctive imagery and album artwork. This holistic approach to their art reflects the band's commitment to crafting an authentic representation of their hometown Savannah, showcasing the Southern Darkness that lives beneath its picturesque surface.

AGONIZE’s vision is squarely set on making hardcore musically and visually as dangerous as possible. With a heavy slate of shows already announced, AGONIZE’s 2025 is just beginning. 

Track Listing:

1. STRANGE REFLECTION
2. ALL THE WAY THROUGH
3. ONCE IT GETS YOU
4. PISS ANT
5. IN THE VACANT LOT

Make Them Suffer's debut album Neverbloom, pressed for the first time on vinyl. Ten years after it's release, the album still stands up as one of the most respected deathcore releases ever, with songs like Widower and the title track still being fan favourites in the band's set.

This is a pre-order item with a release date of November 14th. Anything else purchased in the same order will not be shipping until this is in stock.

100% Hardcore. 100% Straight Edge. 100% Latino. Colombian hardcore band Raw Brigade are stating exactly who they are with their new album 100% out Fall 2025 on Flatspot Records.

The band’s story starts in 2016 in Bogotá, Colombia as friends working at a tattoo shop who put together a Youth Of Today cover band for a one off show. After playing together, they figured why not just be a band, and Raw Brigade was formed. The band dropped a demo that year and followed it up with 2018’s Kicking Your Face EP which began garnering them attention on an international scale. 2021 saw the release of the Hardcore Latino EP and Raw Brigade’s first full-length came in 2022 with Aggressive City. With an arsenal of music, the band’s high energy live show went from South and North America to Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and they’ll hit the road this fall on shows with Agnostic Front and End It.

Always having a mix of English and Spanish vocals in their tracks, when it came time to record 100% it morphed into recording two versions of the record, one in English and one in Spanish. Vocalist Carlos Chavarriaga wrote and produced it with the help of Avery Field and Connors Jones, recording with Jon Markson at The Animal Farm in New Jersey and Santiago Gonzalez at Sepia Studio in Bogotá, and Mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The eleven tracks burst with aggression through furious vocals, fast-paced riffs, and plenty of two-step mosh parts. Influence from NYHC bands like Outburst and Warzone seeps through, while lyrics tackle everything from straight edge pride to addressing those who are treated unjust from corrupt systems.

On crafting the album Carlos shares:

“We always try to have a general theme for each release, the last one was for our city Bogota and for our experience of being immigrants in another country, the one before that was mostly a Latino pride record. On this one we decide to create a compilation of what we are as people and as a band that’s why the name is 100%. We are a straight edge old-school style hardcore punk band from Colombia/ Latinoamerica influenced by New York Hardcore bands from the 80’s. Lyrics cover everything from political to personal experience as Latinos and as Straight Edge people.”

Tracklist:

1. DEAL BREAKER (ITS TIME FOR REVENGE)
2. ANOTHER STRUGGLE
3. SHUT UP
4. TRAITOR (OZYMANDIAS)
5. I DON'T WANNA BE
6. BOGOTÁ 12-4Q
7. R.B. ANTHEM
8. DRUGS
9. BROKEN TEETH
10. POLICE CRIME
11. TERRORIST

The first cut lifted from the album is “Erase Me”, a heavy metalcore masterstroke that has captured the band at their most creative and self-assured. A song about pushing people away and questioning if it comes from a place of selfishness, the chorus of “Erase Me” is both ethereal and anthemic as it builds into an unforgettable crescendo that’s poised to become the highlight of future setlists. “Erase Me” premiered on triple j’s Good Nights this week and is a sign of what’s to come for Make Them Suffer.

Frontman Sean Harmanis elaborates on the meaning of the single: “Erase me is a song about pushing someone away and raises the question; is it selfless or selfish to do? It’s unfortunate to me that some people are wired to always feel as if they’re never good enough. The sentiment of the lyrics ‘I’ve broken you enough so don’t hate me, erase me’ demonstrates a quality selflessness. In retrospection, it’s that same selflessness that makes you ‘good enough’.”

Growth, and the desire for eternal forward motion, have been the concepts that defined Make Them Suffer since the very beginning; and have been the foundations that led them from Perth - the world's most remote capital city in Australia - to become a household name on stages around the world. As they have traversed previous eras, the five-piece have grown through deathcore, melodic death metal and heavy metalcore and, as they continue on this path, look to be defined by nothing more than the label "creative". Through “Ether”, “27” and “Hollowed Heart”, the band has shed the shackles of expectation and, as they look towards the open road that lies ahead of them, the light that guides the way has a name - How To Survive A Funeral.

To assist in the redefinition of every line the band is known for, Make Them Suffer enlisted the assistance of Drew Fulk A.K.A. WZRDBLD, who has worked with everyone from Motionless In White and Bullet For My Valentine to Yelawolf and Lil’ Wayne. The band travelled to LA to shack up at Fulk’s studio, the first time in their career working this closely with a producer, and the result is truly something unique in the current climate of heavy music. The band’s fourth full-length sees inspiration from their past and present twisted together into a package that will define Make Them Suffer’s place amongst their contemporaries as a truly creative act.

Age of Apocalypse materialize at a shadowy crossroads between metal, grunge and hardcore. The Hudson Valley, NY quintet—Dylan Kaplowitz [vocals], Jack Xiques [guitar], Terry Orlando [guitar], Joe Shannon [bass], and Will Kamerman [drums]—steep anthems of darkness, depression, and loss into a disarmingly infectious and downright inimitable hybrid of their own. After receiving acclaim from Stereogum, CVLT NATION, No Echo, and more, the group present a fascinating and fiery vision on their sophomore full-length and debut for Closed Casket Activities, Grim Wisdom.

Initially formed during 2018 after Jack and Dylan previously played in another project. Inspired by an unholy alliance of All Out War, Alice In Chains, Type O Negative, and Life Of Agony, they unveiled The Way in 2020. 2021 saw them team up with “Pain of Truth” for a four-song split. In its wake, Stereogum hailed Age of Apocalypse’s “furious thrashers with big, melodically howled lead vocals and crushing breakdowns.” Throughout 2021, they recorded Grim Wisdom with producer Taylor Young of The Pit Recording Studio. Drums were tracked GCR Studios in Buffalo, NY, followed by the band working out of Jack's studio in Western Massachusetts, while Taylor produced remotely from California and later mixed the release. Mastering handled by Brad Boatright of Audiosiege and original artwork created by Dillon Perino.

Tracklisting

1- Valley of the Mystic

2- The Patriot

3- Fury

4- Grim Wisdom

5- Begging the Reaper

6- Kingdom of Rot

7- Ghost (Hart Island)

8- Memento

9- Pain of Creation

10- Casualty of Time