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Despite being the shortest month of the year, February fired on all cylinders and left a trail of inextinguishable flames to keep us nice and toasty through the tail end of winter. This month gave way to new material all across the musical spectrum, ranging from indie legends the likes of IDLES and MGMT to burgeoning screamo bands such as bulletsbetweentongues and Gxllium, and we even got a new Yeat album, which is easily his most well put-together project by far. Job For a Cowboy dropped their first album in nine years, the aforementioned MGMT have followed up their modern classic Little Dark Age (six years since then, holy shit) with the gentler Loss of Life, and I'm sure there's more I missed, as this month was frankly pretty hard to keep up with. February brought along a slew of announcements from monumental acts and underground legends alike, from Knocked Loose to Wristmeetsrazor, legendary Portishead singer Beth Gibbons (her first album in 20 years!), to Les Savy Fav, etc. Overall, it was very difficult to keep up with everything that flew under even my close-range (hardcore/hardcore-adjacent) radar, let alone the wide, wide fields of the music industry as a whole. Even now in March, I'm checking stuff out to see what to put on this list! With that out of the way, here's my handful of favorites:

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What could I say about this album that I haven't said already? It's unrelenting, it's eternally brooding, and it will crush you into a bloody fucking pulp. I give my full thoughts on this new release from the Illinois noise experimentalists here.

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A good couple years beyond her collaboration with metalcore titans Converge, Chelsea Wolfe's newest solo release sees her connecting with long-looming demons to close the chapters of her past. Going completely sober from alcohol a little while after beginning creation of She Reaches Out..., the album chronicles her recovery, and the cyclical nature of it (hence the repetitive title). Citing Tricky, Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode as primary influences, Chelsea employs elements of industrial, electronica, and trip-hop to create an experience that pulls you into an intimate space, while suspending you in a sense of unease. 'Whispers In The Echo Chamber' pairs whisper-sung vocals with distorted electronics, skittering percussion, and drilling guitars. 'Tunnel Lights' and 'Salt' sound like spaced-out Portishead songs, while 'Place In The Sun' is the sonic equivalent of a ray of sunshine beaming through an endless shroud of clouds and mist. She Reaches Out... is as harrowing of a listen as it is comforting, and it scratches an odd itch I have for music that pairs the artificial and natural in which they interlink to create one being.

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It's easy to write off The Requiem as a mere nostalgia act, as their stylistic and musical similarities to My Chemical Romance are immediately apparent upon first listen—you know how the saying goes, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery..." so on, so forth, but The Requiem have perfectly bottled up that 2000's MySpace-era emo energy and created a time capsule in the form of A Cure To Poison The World. I had waited to hear a full length from these guys since hearing Corpse Party and We Dance To All The Wrong Songs, songs they released in 2022 back when they were called L'exquisite Douleur (I prefer the old name, personally), and I wholeheartedly believe it was worth the wait. Speedy cuts like 'An Elegy Written On Porcelain Arms' and 'Less Than Zero' fit perfectly alongside ballads like 'Cursed' and 'Kill The Lights', and an aughts emo staple—the acoustic song—finds its way on here as 'Two Lovers Left Alive', and it's been stuck in my head since writing this. The Requiem successfully managed to encapsulate what made the era they call back to so special, and I hope they receive more attention as time goes on.

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Yeat barely has to lift a finger to get the Internet buzzing about him—his next drop, his next feature, or even his next hint at an announcement. And there's a good reason for it; Yeat, while not entirely pioneering, essentially opened the floodgates for a whole new era of SoundCloud rap with the 'rage' sound (which is essentially crack for my ears). He has skyrocketed to the top of the charts with the likes of Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, and Young Thug (all of whom he has songs with), and has done so while retaining his image as one huge meme—outlandish bars and ad-libs, absurd remarks in interviews, and downright hilarious business decisions ('Rich Minion' in particular) constantly surrounded the masked celebrity. With 2093, however, he has undergone a drastic rebranding, foregoing the masks and turbans for a Blade Runner/Matrix-esque outfit, with futuristic imagery to match.

In all honesty, this album would've made it on here regardless of how good it actually was, but Yeat has come out with what is easily his most refined, cohesive, and ambitious project yet. He has taken a more hands-on approach, landing producer credits on a great majority of the tracklist, resulting in a project that sounds much more laser-focused and united. Additionally, he has gone completely sober throughout the creation of 2093, and it's incredibly evident in his voice and overall demeanor—there's a noticeable lack of lyrics about Tonka trucks and bars like "luh wonky luh wonky I booted up". Centering in on a sci-fi theme, the influences of techno and electro-industrial—previously hinted at on Afterlyfë—are completely polished and on full display here, this time around sounding like a perfect fusion rather than "Yeat hopping on an EDM track". Songs like 'Breathe' and 'Team ceo' [sic] are filled with wonky basslines, distorted percussion and all sorts of bleeps and bloops, while others like 'ILUV' and 'Morë' are his take on true blue club bangers. This isn't to say that Yeat has completely done away with his signature sound, as songs like 'Nothing Changë' and 'Run Thëy Mouth' show that he hasn't lost the rage, but rather given it a fresh coat of paint. While 2093 is still incredibly bloated at 24 songs (as usual for a Yeat album), nearly every single song on here sounds distinguishable from one another, and trying to trim it down would be a very difficult task. 2093 is sure to stay in constant rotation for me going into the summer, and I eargerly look forward to seeing what this new era of Yeat's career has to offer.

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This Denton, TX five-piece is one of the most standout screamo bands to me in recent times, as they blend together emoviolence and metalcore in a way that falls somewhere on the spectrum between Majority Rule and On Broken Wings, which I wholeheartedly appreciate. On bulletsbetweentongues' debut full-length, they showcase their knack for controlled chaos and brutality, balancing on the tightrope between melody and dissonance. 'Man Without Fear' starts in a flurry of drums before kicking things off with a blood-letting breakdown, 'I Am With You Always' pairs panic chords with melodic passages at a steady pace, and 'The Sun Darkened' outright starts off with one of the best breakdowns I have heard in recent times. The Lights Never Lie positions bulletsbetweentongues as a band that perfectly fits in the year of 2024 just as well as they would've in the 90's/2000's metalcore scene, and I'm excited for what's to come from these guys.

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Philly cybergrind artist ZOMBIESHARK! returns with their sophomore album, shoving us on a twisted ride through the realms of industrial, metalcore, grind, and whatever other territories Die Laughing. whips through. They have even brought a few guests along for the ride, including glitchy metalcore band Soulkeeper for the blasting 'Loxosceles On The Isosceles', and Fire-Toolz for the harrowing 'Online Garden Of Eden HD'. Die Laughing. barely holds itself together as it zips through passages at lightspeed, with songs like 'RGB Gaming Guillotine' and 'Party All The Time' giving an ambient backdrop to cacophonies of drum-n-bass and metalcore in a less-than-2-minute burst. Despite the frenetic nature of this album, more human-paced cuts like the post-hardcore styled 'Put Your Glasses On, Nothing Can Be Wrong' or the lulling 'Home Before Sunset' with Hallucinogenic Bulb weave their way in the tracklist, making for a truly unpredictable and whiplash-inducing listen. This, right here, is what cybergrind is all about.

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Look, I'll admit it—I've slept on Glitterer for far too long. Not because I'm amongst the "I Miss Title Fight" crowd (I do, but not enough to harass Ned Russin at Glitterer shows about it), but because A: I had never really gone out of my way to check out a full album, and B: What few Glitterer songs I had heard, while good in their own fashion, never really stood out to me. All of that has officially changed with the release of Rationale, as Glitterer has expanded into a full band! Joining Ned are Nicole Dao, Connor Morin, and Jonas Farah on keyboard, guitar, and drums respectively, and the material here feels a lot more fleshed-out as a result. Synthy bedroom pop and fuzzy shoegaze mingle with punky alt-rock in a way that feels simultaneously refined and like that of a band that is still getting a feel of their own sound, and none of it sounds out of place at all. From the new-wavey synths on 'Plastic' to the echoey, passionately strained vocals on 'No One There,' Rationale thwarts comparison to Ned Russin's previous band. While similarities can be drawn, Glitterer is not a mere "Title Fight offshoot", but a group of experienced musicians who have taken the skills they've acquired and shone a different light on them.

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Pittsburgh's own Edhochuli seamlessly melds together what I perceive to be two polar opposites; tried and true classic hard rock, and harsh, gritty hardcore. While I was never a fan of the former as it constantly plays on the same age-old "rock" tropes, Edhochuli put a very refreshing spin on the formula with their third album—and their first in nine years—the hardcore-steeped prog-metal album Higherlander. Despite only consisting of five songs, each one of them is a unit of their own, clocking the whole work in at 40 and a half minutes. And much like the intricate, colorful cover for this LP, each of these five songs are incredibly detailed. 'Questionably Paleo, Incontrovertibly Neanderthal' incorporates a steady, swinging rhythm that it rides for the majority of its almost 7-minute runtime, giving ample room for a breakdown and time to rest throughout. 'I Must Build' has a mountain-like structure to it, starting off at breakneck punk speeds before slowing down, pummeling drums making way for riffs that cut through the atmosphere like epic rays of light—finishing off by pushing the pedal to the metal before finishing off with a breakdown that is equal parts grandiose and brutal. I could spend all day trying to detail every little piece they cram into these five songs, or you could take in the entire 40 minutes yourself, unpacking every individual brushstroke that forms the entire picture. In short, Edhochuli is a band that I can see fans of Thin Lizzy and American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost sharing a mutual appreciation for, and I am amazed they managed to pull it off.

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After their chaotic output that was CRAWLER, IDLES return with what is easily their most vulnerable album yet, primarily tackling the theme of love—Joe Talbot stating upon the creation of the album that he "needed love, so [he] made it". With production from frequent Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich and Kenny Beats, TANGK is the Bristol band's most sonically varied, with hypnotic combinations of electronica, works of balladry, and grungy guitarwork. The songs this time around are deliberately danceable, including the appropriately titled lead single 'Dancer' which features backing vocals from LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy and Nancy Whang, and the punchy 'Hall & Oates'. 'Grace', despite the somewhat controversial music video containing an AI deepfake of Coldplay's Chris Martin from their Yellow video—in which he had given permission and assisted with—is wonderfully intimate, with Talbot gently singing of "love [being] the fing". 'A Gospel' is in a similar vein, but in place of percussion is a piano backing, making for a comforting song altogether. While my overall opinion on IDLES as a band and where they place themselves on their stances is questionable, I can't deny that this is their most ambitious work yet.

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And now, for the honorable mentions! This is for all the projects that I either couldn't form my thoughts of into a single paragraph, or otherwise didn't have much to say about, but still feel are worthy of attention:

BONES - .ZIP

After releasing a midwest emo album back in January, BONES is back to his usual antics. Hard-hitting masterfully crafted beats make way for his Memphis-flavored flows.

VOLP - Vortex

These Parisian noisemakers execute a calculated assault along the lines of KEN mode, Kowloon Walled City and Botch on their debut LP.

onewaymirror / Gxllium - Split

Two up and coming names in the skramz scene join together for one of the most pulverizing splits I've heard this year. onewaymirror give their heaviest offering yet, while Gxllium rupture eardrums with their screeching, noise-oriented approach.

9 Lagoons Of Death - "Feels Like The Last Time"

The sophomore release from blackgaze project 9 Lagoons Of Death emphasizes atmosphere, coming out with a project that you can get lost in amongst the noise. Also, I love the snares on this.

MGMT - Loss Of Life

Admittedly, I really wish I had more to say about this one. But I can at least acknowledge that the more Britpop-oriented tunes on here are sweet, soft and easy-going, making for a solid comfort album.

Job for a Cowboy - Moon Healer

Concluding the long-unfinished duology that started with 2014's Sun Eater, Job for a Cowboy return more refreshed than ever with their most colorful and varied album yet. Inspired by a friend's hallucinogenic-fueled self-discovery journey, the prog-death metal prodigies display an ability to balance technicality and push-pull dynamics to create a sense of brutality on an emotional level.

hanoi traffic - towards an end

Australian skramz band hanoi traffic do the right thing and make emo violent as shit on their debut EP. Vocalist Isaac's echoed, visceral screams combined with erratic playing make this a huge highlight for me.

MIDDLING / Pickpocket - Split

MIDDLING bring a hint of sass with their concoction of simple dissonance and mathy rhythms, while Pickpocket give a more streamlined approach, with razor-sharp guitarwork cutting through with intense aspects of melody.