London-based band Harsh Language recently dropped their staggering new single "Helium Heart," successfully capturing the untethered, dizzying panic of sudden grief. The three-piece Sean Shreeve, Rob Green, and Alec Albury wrestle with an incredibly difficult headspace here. They boldly smash the raw, muscular grit of progressive metalcore against the bruised melancholy of electronica, forging an aggressively heavy, boundary-defying soundscape. https://open.spotify.com/track/2ObVXZYfe16OiJd44zSSIy?si=00913aad74f2461a Grief is a chaotic animal, and...

Geoff Westen’s album, “Music For My Friends”, thumps onto the scene like a dropped box of heavy disco balls – all shiny potential energy and the slight threat of chaos. It aims for that classic pop song euphoria, the kind designed to rattle car speakers and fuel late-night dance floors, an "aural assault" as Westen puts it. And it does pulse with energy, a...