Heavy Song of the Week is a feature on Heavy Consequence breaking down the top metal and hard rock tracks you need to hear every Friday. This week, the top spot goes to “Evil Chuck” by Sunn O))).
Sunn O))) were recently announced as a part of the Sub Pop Singles Club Vol. 8, with the cloaked drone metallers offering up the tracks “Evil Chuck” and “Ron G Warrior” for release on 7-inch vinyl as part of the label’s long-running subscription program.
Both tracks were unveiled in digital form this week, with the former paying tribute to the late Chuck Schuldiner of Death. Schuldiner is considered a pioneering force behind the death metal genre and a true hero of heavy metal, and he tragically passed away in 2001 after a battle with brain cancer at the all-too-young age of 34.
We’d like to think that somewhere, the spirit of Evil Chuck, as he was lovingly referred to by fans, is nodding along in unison to Sunn’s lurching, tectonic tones. The track clocks in at under six minutes, making it a veritable pop song by the band’s typical standards. Chord changes come fast and frequently, emanating frequencies that will test the limits of your speakers and subwoofer. Crank it, and let the doom bath wash over you.
Honorable Mentions:
Chelsea Wolfe – “Whispers in the Echo Chamber”
Chelsea Wolfe has always operated in an adjacent sphere as her industrial counterparts (touring with HEALTH in 2019, for example), but her own music is far too multi-faceted to be blanketed under that genre exclusively. That said, we can safely dub her latest single “Whispers in the Echo Chamber” industrial with its pulsing digital beat and noisy, atmospheric swells. Not surprisingly, it’s a sound that suits her well.
Job for a Cowboy – “The Forever Rot”
Job for a Cowboy’s comeback track “The Agony Seeping Storm” was a revelation — certainly a shoe-in for our eventual shortlist of the best heavy songs of 2023. It’s nice to hear that the follow-up single, “The Forever Rot,” is a different beast altogether. Far more prog-ier in its tapestry-esque arrangement of guitars and linear flow, the track sees the band balancing brutality with compositional decadence. It may have been a long near-decade-long hiatus, but Job for a Cowboy have emerged with some serious heat.
Lucifer – “At the Mortuary (Halloween Edit)”
Just in time for Halloween, occult rockers Lucifer have offered up the thematically grim tune “At the Mortuary” — the second single from their forthcoming album, Lucifer V. There’s something about Sweden and fuzzy, warm, vintage heavy rock. Bands like Truckfighters and Graveyard established the country as a hotbed for such sounds, and Lucifer fall right in line with their NWOBHM-meets-Heart aesthetic, which is in full effect on this riffer.