Richmond, Virginia thrashers Enforced are one of the toughest bands on the interlocking hardcore and metal undergrounds. In a couple of months, they’ll release the new album Kill Grid, and you should prepare for this thing to rip your fucking face off. Enforced’s 2019 debut At The Walls was a true shit-stomper, but that one was a collection of tracks from previous LPs. Kill Grid is an album, and it’s shaping up to be a serious monster.

We’ve already posted the extremely hard lead single “Hemorrhage.” Today, Enforced follow that one up with the thundering blitz “Malignance.” The song is fast and its riffs are pure volcanic ’80s-style thrash. Frontman Knox Colby sounds like he’s just climbed a mountain of skulls and ripped his shirt off. It’s some real sick shit. Check out the song’s grainy, lo-fi video below.

In a press release, Colby says:

“Malignance” is about being on the wrong side of history, being led down the path of an ideology built on hatred and violence, only to end up with a bullet in your stomach. The lyrics about-face towards the end of the song and try to shake you out of it. Wake up, get a grip, understand and accept that you’re wrong. The chorus was inspired by a World War 2 prisoner-of-war torture tactic I read about. Soldiers who were captured were forced to smell the bodies of their friends and comrades, which became this strange introspective psychological torture that fit the narrative I was writing.

Guitarist Will Wagstaff says:

This song has an older Slayer type of vibe to me, maybe Show No Mercy/Haunt The Chapel era. This is a pure crossover song, a la Exodus/early Testament/Slayer. We knew we wanted to keep it fast for most of the song and it ended up coming together organically during a practice.

Kill Grid is out 3/12 on Century Media.