The Houston band Skourge have staked out a particularly nasty corner of the American underground, fusing bust-your-shit-open hardcore with gnarly, intense old-school ’80s death metal. That can be a great combination when a band finds the right balance. Skourge find the right balance. Their sound is ugly and raw and fearsome, and it just absolutely owns. In the past few years, Skourge have released a couple of demos and a 2015 EP called Suffering Earth. And now they’ve followed that one up with a new EP called Condemned. The new EP is brutal and immediate and low-budget and apocalyptic. It’s that real gargling-blood shit. Listen to it below.

“Holy War”? Fuck, man. The Condemned EP is out now, and you can buy it at Bandcamp. The cassette version will be out soon on Teeny Tiny Records.