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, No. 1 goes to Gaerea’s new single “Submerged.”
Portugal’s Gaerea just inked a deal with Century Media Records, shifting from one stalwart metal imprint (Season of Mist) to another. That’s just semantics for listeners, but the announcement did usher in new music in the form of “Submerged,” plus a new album arriving in 2026.
At five minutes in length, the one-off single is a relatively bite-sized encapsulation of Gaerea’s sound, which melds elements of traditional atmospheric black metal, death metal, and melodic post-metal — all of which can be heard here. It’s merely a coincidence that both groups start with a ‘G’ and share similar-sounding six-letter band names, but Gojira comparisons are inevitable, in that both groups achieve a similar level of grandeur from the combination of harshness and melody.
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Honorable Mentions:
Dead Heat – “Perpetual Punishment”
Dead Heat take us right back to 1986 with the intro to “Perpetual Punishment,” with the calming chimes of the acoustic guitar begetting a crushed-out blast of lo-fi thrash riffs. Dead Heat are decidedly old-school — this is Bay Area thrash worship to the max — but the memorable melodic riffing is undeniably impressive, and quality riffing always distinguishes the cream of the crop when it comes to thrash, an overpopulated sub-genre. Let’s just say, there’s a reason Dead Heat are signed to Metal Blade, the same label that released Slayer’s earliest works.
Fleshwater –“Last Escape”
After nabbing our HSOTW honor a couple of weeks ago, Fleshwater land on our countdown again, this time with the follow-up single “Last Escape.” The ’90s-core is pervasive: a breakbeat intro, thick guitars, a music video shot in an empty shopping mall. It’s not just tone and fashion, though. Guitarist Anthony DiDio and drummer Matt Wood brought over just enough math from their other band Vein.fm to keep the rhythm varied, resulting in some satiating musical dynamics during the bridge and instrumental sections of the song. Elsewhere, singer Marisa Shirar floats over the mix. The band claims to have recorded the vocals at home, whereas the music was studio-tracked. An unconventional move, but Shirar sounds great with that natural room reverb.
Hail the Sun – “War Crimes”
Hail the Sun just announced their new album, cut. turn. fade. back., arriving October 24th. The math-rock vets also dropped the lead single “War Crimes,” a song that’s almost confrontational in its construction. At first, it sounds like somebody accidentally layered a melodic metalcore song over a completely random D-beat drum track. And then you keep listening, and it strangely starts to match up. Then Hail the Sun throw another rhythmic curveball — or the music drops out completely. In short, expect the unexpected. Thankfully, it’s not super linear, as the band circles back to certain parts of the arrangement, so you’re that much more familiar with the subtleties after each pass.