Skip to main content

If You Can't Stand The Heat, Get Out Of The Kitchen: Dejected - Altered (Track Review) Released: 4/25/25

 


Dejected, the McHenry County, Illinois heavy metal outfit that's been steadily building their sound since 2021, have come with "Altered," a single that functions as both a mission statement and a transformation document. Formed by Kevin Serratos, Adam Dean, and Kyle McCleavy with roots in metalcore, nu-metal, and deathcore, the band's sound shifted meaningfully when Jacob Hammer came aboard in 2023, folding in progressive metal and beatdown elements that gave their music more structural ambition. Derek Ansell's addition in 2025 rounds out the lineup, and "Altered" feels like the first real proof of what this fully assembled version of the band can do. Lyrically, "Altered" orbits the wreckage of misplaced trust. The opening lines paint a portrait of someone processing betrayal not with grief but with mounting resolve. The imagery of being sharpened and skinned alive cuts with surgical precision, grounding the track's emotional violence in something uncomfortably physical. Lines like "this weight is unbearable yet I won't bow" carry a defiant exhaustion that feels genuine rather than performative, and the song's framing of addiction and reckoning as forces that shadow a person gives the writing a psychological texture that elevates it above standard metalcore lyricism. What separates "Altered" from the pack is the way it builds across its five-minute runtime.


 The first half carries the lyrical weight before the track pivots into a hammering, repetitive descent anchored by the single word "heat." What could feel like a lazy outro instead becomes the song's most hypnotic section, the repetition mirrors the lyrical theme of obsession and inescapable consequence, making the structural choice feel intentional rather than accidental. The progressive and beatdown influences Hammer brought to the table are felt most prominently here, in the patience the track exercises as it allows that second half to both breathe and bludgeon simultaneously. "Altered" is Dejected, announcing that the band that formed in McHenry County has evolved into something harder to ignore. The production keeps things raw enough to honor their heavy roots without burying the nuance, and while some lyrical moments feel slightly unresolved, the ambition is undeniable, and the execution is largely there. For a band still in the process of defining themselves, that counts for a lot, and the transition into the "Heat" section alone is worth the price of admission.

Go give Altered a spin and see what you've been missing: 

Go give them a follow on Instagram: Dejected
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kentucky's Heavy Secret: Stormtoker - These Edibles Ain't Shit (EP Review) Released: 12/5/25

  Lexington, Kentucky, isn't exactly the first city that comes to mind when you think of the sludge and stoner metal underground, but Stormtoker seems intent on changing that. Their EP These Edibles Ain't Shit arrives like a slow, crushing wave of amplifier worship and chemically-assisted existential dread, and it makes a compelling case that the Bluegrass State has something mean and heavy brewing beneath its surface. Stormtoker is a fierce, impassioned force of nature, a band that feels like devout disciples of Ozzy Osbourne who came of age at the turn of the millennium but refused to let the roots of heavy metal die.  With sonic DNA tracing back to Cream, Hendrix, King Crimson, and even Arthur Brown, they summon an alluring sound that entrances as much as it pummels. This is a band equally at home in the sludge pit and the alt-rock headspace, a melodic restlessness running beneath the downtuned grime that keeps things unpredictable and owing as much to the 90s alternative u...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Long Way to Simple: SMFC -The First Four Songs (EP Review) Released: 2/20/26 (Part 1) & 3/27/26 (Part 2)

  There's something refreshingly unpretentious about calling your debut EP The First Four Songs . No cryptic title, no elaborate concept, no attempt to manufacture mystique out of thin air. Just Steev Custer, a guitarist with more than thirty years of Chicago scene credibility behind him, putting his work in front of you and letting it speak for itself. In an era when even the smallest releases arrive wrapped in press releases thick with buzzwords and carefully curated influences, that kind of directness feels almost radical. Custer is not a new name to anyone who's paid attention to the Chicago punk and rock underground, and his fingerprints are all over the city's musical history with names such as Death and Memphis, The Bomb, and My Big Beautiful. It's a lengthy résumé that spans post-punk, power pop, and everything in between, but these are bands built on the premise that a great song is worth more than a great concept, and that ethos carries directly into SMFC, his...
Post a Comment
Read more

Brutal Descent into Darkness: Heliophilia - Fire, Borne Of The Sky (Track Review) Released 3/8/26

There's something genuinely impressive about a two-piece act that can conjure a wall of sound dense enough to feel like a full band assault, and that's exactly what Marinette, Wisconsin's Heliophilia accomplishes on "Fire, Borne of the Sky." Comprised of Michael Vandermuse and Kyle Bush, this underground metal duo has crafted a track that blends deathcore brutality, black metal atmosphere, and dark fantasy storytelling into something that feels far bigger than its two-person lineup would suggest.  From the outset, "Fire, Borne of the Sky" makes clear that this isn't going to be a conventional metal track. It opens with an eerie, synth-driven low-frequency atmosphere that immediately sets a tone of dread before the track explodes into cavernous, down-tuned guitar riffs and crushing drum work. That contrast between quiet menace and overwhelming heaviness becomes the song's defining structural choice, and it's one that Heliophilia leans into ...
Post a Comment
Read more