Heavy Song of the Week: Grand Cadaver’s “Darkened Apathy” Is a Slab of Classic Death Metal

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 Swedish supergroup Grand Cadaver’s new single “Darkened Apathy”.”

Grand Cadaver are a supergroup featuring Dark Tranquillity vocalist Bengt Mikael Stanne, and our Heavy Song of the Week selection “Darkened Apathy” hails from their forthcoming EP The Rot Beneath.

Considering this week’s roundup comes at the end of “Metal Week” here at Consequence, the track is a slab of aptly classic death metal of the old-school strain. There’s a tangible doom element here as well, with dissonant arpeggios ringing out and preceding a trudging and ominous arrangement that eventually picks up to a breakneck pace before circling back for some tasty breakdowns. The tempo adjustments throughout the song are mighty impressive — the work of seasoned vets.

Honorable Mentions:

La Dispute – “Sibling Fistfight at Mom’s Fiftieth / The Un-sound”

Post-hardcore act La Dispute dropped a whopping five songs this week as part of Act 3 of their forthcoming album. The highlight of the batch got its own video clip and stands one of the more concise and song-y tracks from this highly conceptual narrative LP. The vocals and guitars are propulsive and play off one another as the plot thickens, vocalist Jordan Dreyer’s storytelling flow rising to a controlled shout.

Mammoth – “The Spell”

Wolfgang Van Halen already notched a prior top song of the week honor with the title track from his upcoming album The End. Its follow-up “The Spell” is a bit more poppy and restrained, relying on Wolfgang’s deft sense of dynamic, melody, and song structure rather than flashy guitar fireworks. Per the usual, he played all the instruments on the tune, giving him full command over these intricacies.

We Came as Romans – “culture wound”

This week, We Came as Romans announced their new album All Is Beautiful…Because We’re Doomed, out August 22nd. The band also shared a third tease of the LP in form of “culture wound,” a track that illustrates the dark/light duality of the album title, as WCAR juggle soaring, melodic passages with brutal segments of growled vocals and hyper-active metalcore.