I’m no metal expert, but did I spend a lot of time in middle school listening to Pantera and Deftones. So I am happy to report that the new Car Bomb song “Scattered Sprites,” from their upcoming album Mordial, digs its verses straight out of the The Great Southern Trendkill’s apocalyptic sludge and launches its chorus directly into White Pony’s airspace. Shit is sick. There’s even some rad soloing that reminds me of Joe Satriani, who I also used to bump liberally back then, to my shame but this song’s glory. I would have gladly put “Scattered Sprites” on a mixtape and blasted it on my Walkman. I still would!

Who are Car Bomb, you ask? When Black Market contributor Doug Moore posted their song “Sets” back in 2016, he identified them as a Long Island outfit — they’ve since relocated to Brooklyn — dead set on making the weirdest sounds possible: “They play a rhythmically abstruse variety of extreme metal most obviously influenced by Meshuggah and the Dillinger Escape Plan. Those two bands did a lot to popularize zany stringed-instrument noises in metal, but Car Bomb exceeds even their legendary capacity for zonks and skronks.”

Now that we’re caught up, have a listen to “Scattered Sprites” via its official music video, animated by guitarist Greg Kubacki. And you might as well stick around for lead single “Dissect Yourself,” which dropped back in May.

Mordial is out 9/27 on Holy Roar. Pre-order it here if you’re in the UK or Europe and here for the rest of the world, including the US.