There’s a certain type of epic, majestic, sincerely serious metallic hardcore that’s truly thriving in Europe these days. It’s not that America can’t do that stuff; Connecticut’s Balmora really nailed it with their 2023 album With Thorns Of Glass And Petals Of Grief. But Europe really goes all in with that shit. The Coming Strife Records, an excellently named British label, has become a great source for apocalyptic metalcore, and they’ve just dropped a new album that’s hitting me especially hard this morning.

The Finnish band Gray State has been around for the better part of a decade, and they’ve already released one full-length, 2018’s Our Final Regret. But Gray State are new to me, and they’re probably new to you, too; they’ve got fewer than 1,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. So you’re going to have to trust me when I tell you that their new album Under The Wheels Of Progress sounds like planets exploding. Gray State pull from whatever they want: Blazing stadium-metal solos, Hatebreed-style chest-thumping, atmospheric black metal zone-outs. They’re not afraid to get pretentious; there’s a six-minute track called “The Death Of True Love” on here. But the pretension isn’t the point. They’re just here to rain brimstone down on you, and they’ll use every tool at their disposal to do it.

This is a vast, breathlessly intense record — the kind of music that you might play while jumping into an active volcano. You have to be in a particular mood to lock in with a record like this one, but if you’re there, it destroys. Stream it below.

Under The Wheels Of Progress is out now on The Coming Strife.