If you ever want to disappear into a total internet black hole, then I would heartily suggest investigating some of the Russian metal, hardcore, and metalcore that’s out there on Bandcamp. There is so much of it! It’s so intriguing! That whole world is pretty mysterious, and even toe-dipping into it forces to you to wonder what metalcore shows are like in Russia. (I bet that shit is gnarly.) But it’s also hard to find a single entry point. So here’s one for you: The metalcore band Signs Of Spring just released a new three-song EP, and it kicks a lot of ass.

Signs Of Spring come from Izhevsk, which Wikipedia tells me is Russia’s 19th-biggest city and “the capital of Russian electronic music.” The band’s sound is a frantic and feverish take on the genre. The band writes lyrics in English, but they deliver those lyrics in a black metal-style gargle-screech that makes those lyrics perfectly incomprehensible. They occasionally veer out of their riff-pummel and into operatic goth-melody that few Western bands would even attempt. Last year, the band released the debut EP Yes, you’re an angel, which has some commendably ugly cover art and which was picked up by the UK hardcore label Wretched Records. Today, they’ve followed it up with a new three-song joint with the extremely self-serious title [a stillborn feeling of care and affection that could not become love].

The new EP is a grand, theatrical wallow in bad feelings, and it sounds bigger and more ambitious than you’d expect from a DIY Bandcamp hardcore outfit. They end it with a nine-minute cover of “A Distance There Is,” a 1995 goth-metal reverie from the Norwegian band Theatre Of Tragedy. Check out the EP below.

[a stillborn feeling of care and affection that could not become love] is out now on Wretched Records.