[Cover photo credit to Christoffer Rosenfeldt]

Heavy Metal and Rap band Gradience have released new single and video “Deathwish” via Metal Blade Records. The band blends sludgy blackened Death Metal and dark urban Trap-Rap and likes to use emotive vocal lines.

Comments guitarist/vocalist Jakob Lærke Harris on “Deathwish”:

‘Deathwish’ is our homage to the MySpace-era songs from bands we grew up listening to like Killswitch Engage, Job For A Cowboy and The Black Dahlia Murder but with our signature rap and melodic twist. We wanted to create a song with a lot of forward momentum that gets the circle pit going.

Gradience was built on friendship when, in 2022, guitarist Jakob Lærke Harris and vocalist Gavin Mistry struck up an immediate rapport at a Copenhagen show for local Deathcore band Cabal. Although from very different backgrounds, Jakob a visual artist and musician playing in “a popcore band,” Gavin is a main player “in different hip-hop constellations”, they quickly found common ground in an area both wanted to explore.

Harris notes:

It just feels completely natural for us to mix everything. We’re really up for whatever label people want to put on us. We’ve actually found it difficult for ourselves to narrow it down but we like to think of ourselves as just being a metal band. We’ve used the description ‘blackened rap metal’ just to catch people’s attention. But to me, rap is just a tool we use to convey an emotion or feel, just like we use screams and melody. We’ve found different styles of rap and singing that suit Gavin really well, and when we’re writing vocals for a song, we’re only thinking about what would be the best fit with the energy and vibe. For us, there needs to be an emotional connection in order for heavy music to resonate with the listener on a deeper level.