10 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Songs Of 2018
7. Ithaca – “The Language Of Injury”
Ready your camo baseball caps and long-sleeve t-shirts, because it is time to wade neck-deep into some gnarly hardcore goodness! And the brutality in question is coming from Ithaca and their “Language of Injury” single, which is pre-empting the arrival of their equally intense debut album in February 2019.
Inspired by extreme metalcore stalwarts like The Chariot, Ithaca rage hard in this three-minute burst. Guitars discordantly whir like machinery over progressive yet grooving percussion, while Djamila Azzouz and Sam Chetan-Welsh exchange bellicose yells.
But what makes “The Language of Injury” truly special is its slyly melodic undercurrent. Djamila’s fleeting uses of clean singing, especially in the song’s fast-paced opening, create a tone of unsettling gorgeousness; of beauty in the dissonance. A switch to a slightly cleaner guitar tone in the track’s middle section also accentuates this intriguing dynamic.
It may only be a short snapshot of what is to come but, based on this single, Ithaca are going to be big news in 2019 and beyond. Their signing to Holy Roar Records only increases the hype, as that label has been responsible for many of 2018’s best albums, including Conjurer’s Mire and Rolo Tomassi’s Time Will Die & Love Will Bury It.