Heavy Song of the Week: Hatebreed’s “Kill Count Increase”

Heavy Song of the Week is a feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal, punk, and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, we highlight the new single “Kill Count Increase” from Hatebreed.

Some weeks, it pours. Any given week is a process of whittling down excellent material, but this week in particular I wanted to be sure to give a shout out to music that was superb but didn’t quite make it. Emma Ruth Rundle’s scattering scalding gothic “Enough” is brilliant in its atmospherics; King Ultramega’s cover of Soundgarden’s “Birth Ritual” featuring Lzzy Hale is one of the few times Cornell has been capably matched on the mic; Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats delivered a perfect hybrid of doomy boogie and progressive flourish with “Shapes of Midnight”; and Chiodos provided a complex, riveting return with their newest single “TAPDAT.”

What nabs the top spot this week is the primitive bruiser “Kill Count Increase” by Hatebreed. Metalcore is a tricky genre. Too far in one direction and the melody overcomes the heaviness that is its primary objective, not to mention balancing the metallic and hardcore elements to make a song that feels like it understands both worlds rather than just wearing their clothing.

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“Kill Count Increase” is simple at its heart but crafted via the complex career-long work of masters of both worlds, with the band offering a compelling mix of death metal heft and thrash metal intensity while Jamey Jasta spits world class hardcore barks over top. When they band decides to go for a breakdown, it doesn’t feel perfunctory but earned, like the only thing left to do after that rager is to break stuff. It’s perfect. It’s our Heavy Song of the Week.

Honorable Mentions

Hypno5e – “Lost Fires”

Hypno5e are one of progressive metal’s most underrated groups, perhaps because they focus so tightly on composition rather than flash. “Lost Fires” is relatively short for the group, only just barely cresting the 8-minute mark, but it is full of grooves, atmosphere, and rigorous control of dynamics that feels like a short film unfurling before you more than a song. They merge the sonic approach of a band like The Ocean with post-metal and more obvious progressive flourish but never in a way that feels like showboating, instead focusing on development and depth. This, the debut single from their upcoming album Trame Noire, signifies another great installment from a band that for the past decade now has failed to miss.

Kim Dracula – “Molecular Conversion”

My unfamiliarity with the world of TikTok meant that this name was unfamiliar to me beyond the Deftones song. The opening stretch of Kim Dracula’s “Molecular Conversion” owes a debt to Tool and A Perfect Circle, but the the middle section opens up with a saxophone, bright melody, choral vocals, and a sense of playfulness that adds refreshing emotional complexity to what came before. The song has more depth beneath the surface than I initially anticipated, and the conviction and earned confidence on this track whets my appetite for what Kim Dracula has next.

Protomartyr – “Sounds We Cannot Hear”

Protomartyr have quietly been one of the best post-punk bands on the planet for roughly a decade now, folding in enough abstruse art rock contemplativeness and intellectual noise rock chaos to show a complex interior to their otherwise droll exterior. “Sounds We Cannot Hear,” the debut single from their upcoming Hotel Usona, fuses intellectual lyricism with the kind of abstract emotional darkness that makes their music so compelling. It feels often like listening to a noir in daytime, the reflections of a strange night before that you know will lead to yet another strange night ahead. They are the musical equivalent of a Bolano novella, with deeply shadowed angles and perversity hidden in the common details. They remain brilliant.