Listen To This: 5 Songs You Need To Hear Right Now (March 9, 2020)

A lot of new music passes through the Kerrang! offices on a daily basis, from pop-punk to gore metal. And while we like plenty of what we receive, there are just some tracks that we need to tell the world about the minute we hear them. Welcome to Listen To This, a new weekly column where we share five new songs that make us excited to be rock fans. For everyone out there looking for something new and interesting to start off their week, get in here – you’ve got to hear this stuff.

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With the new Ozzy album safely out and racking up chart positions, most workshirt-wearers have gone into sonic hibernation for the rest of the year, while the more 'serious' punks and hard rock connoisseurs still have reunion shows to chew their nails over. For those of us looking for cool, new music, March is chugging along steadily in a stream of exciting singles by rad bands. Here are five of them:

For fans of: Marduk, Xibalba, All Pigs Must Die

Blackened spiritual hardcore – the description makes it sound lofty, but laCasta prove it’s just delicious as fuck. Faith is a solid distillation of their sound, brolic even while it retains a poisonous misanthropy. The serrated edge on the Italian four-piece’s guitar tone gives the whole thing a distinctly kvltish feel, though their charging speed and grunted vocals feel like they could have come out of Buffalo, New York. The video also does laCasta's atmosphere justice, with its smoky temple caverns reminding viewers that even the most hallowed hall is a brutal place.

laCasta's In Æternvm is out now on Argonauta Records.

For fans of: Thrice, Scarlet, Boysetsfire

The kind of panic at the core of what Shakers do feels inherently American, born out of the West Coast and Rust Belt emo movements. But the five-piece are actually German, lending a new angle to their latest single If It’s Done With, It’s Eternal. Wherever they’re from, Shakers bring an anxiety that similar acts only dream of, and will instantly resonate with listeners looking for something that vents its emotions in a frantic, harrowing gush.

Shakers' new album I Need You To Know comes out April 10.

READ THIS: The 25 greatest emo albums of all time

For fans of: Weezer, McClusky, Dead Soft

'This fuckin’ band drove all the way from fuckin’ California / Can you throw, like, three to five so they can smoke marijuana?' Thus begins the despondent yet impossible-to-ignore new track from New York punk duo TOP nachos (named, it should be noted, for the most loaded of chips). The song is simplistic in a lot of ways, but its big, emotionally-sharp central riff is absolutely killer, and their hilariously real lyrics begging you to spend money on bands gives the track a shlubby kind of genius (where the hell is West Carolina?). You think you could’ve written this song, but you didn’t, these dudes did.

TOP nachos' new single Donate 2 The Bands is available for download.

For fans of: FIDLAR, Kvelertak, Nada Surf

Is it Norwegian metal’n’roll or West Coast indie punk? It’s both, baby! LÜT’s new single has the shrieks and heaviness one might expect from other Norse bands of a colder nature, but their guitar tone, big gang vocals (in Norwegian, no less) and jangly drumming all say unforgettable beach weekend. The end product is dreamy and fun, but also has that extra bit of sentimental gravitas that’ll have indie movie fans eating this shit up. What a crazy summer that was, in song form.

LÜT's new album is due out later this year.

For fans of: Kvelertak, Gojira, The Dillinger Escape Plan

With their mixture of American djent, Scandinavian extreme metal, and European prog, it makes a sort of sense that Stake hail from Belgium. The band’s new video for single Critical Method is bathed in shadow, but still brings enough throb, bounce, and ache to keep it from just being poorly-lit performance footage. The result feels huge while at the same time artsy, and illustrates just how well this four-piece might fill the whole left by many of their retired progressive brethren.

Stake's Critical Method is out now.

READ THIS: Album review: Kvelertak – Splid