Almost nobody releases music in the dead space between Christmas and the new year. General consensus says that anything that comes out in that corridor, when people are away from work and off their routines, will go completely ignored, and maybe general consensus is right. But Eternal Sleep, the Pittsburgh band who specializes in nasty-ass metallic hardcore, does not have any use for general consensus. Today, that’s a good thing.

Eternal Sleep released their full-length debut The Emptiness Of… back in 2016. Since then, we’ve gotten very little new music from the band. (Frontman Joseph Sanderson also sings for the band Unreal City, who released a beast of an album called Cruelty Of Heaven in 2020.) Last year, on New Year’s Eve, Eternal Sleep returned with a two-song single, “There Above” b/w “Against A Wall.” They also promised a new album in 2022, and they just barely made it under the wire.

Eternal Sleep’s sophomore album Desperate Prayer Blues, out today, is an ambitious and bloody-minded piece of heavy hardcore. The band recorded the album with Arthur Rizk, the Cold World/War Hungry/Eternal Champion/Sumerlands guitarist who has produced for bands like Power Trip, Pissed Jeans, and Show Me The Body. Rizk produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered Desperate Prayer Blues, and the album has a bottom-heavy hard-rock lurch that he knows how to capture. There’s a ton of riff-metal groove on the record, and its clean-singing moments even recall grunge bands like Alice In Chains. But the album still works as tough, merciless fight music. If you were into SpritWorld’s Deathwestern, there’s a good chance that you’ll be into this, too. Stream it below.

Desperate Prayer Blues is out now on Closed Casket Activities.