GORE. - IF YOU DO NOT FEAR ME… EP
- Samuel Stevens
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Texas-based metal band GORE. return with their sophomore EP, IF YOU DO NOT FEAR ME…, out September 26, 2025, via Spinefarm Records. Following their 2024 label debut, A Bud That Never Blooms, which earned them critical acclaim, the band doubled down on their mission to fuse modern metal’s brutality with a distinctly feminine perspective that is as raw as it is unapologetic. Where A Bud That Never Blooms leaned heavily into themes of fragility, loss, and societal violence, this new EP sharpens its teeth and digs deeper into the corrosive emotions that arise when stability is stripped away.
Led by vocalist Haley Roughton, alongside guitarist Alex Reyes and bassist Devin Birchfield, GORE. have quickly carved out a place in the heavy music landscape by rejecting the genre’s macho posturing and instead channelling a visceral honesty that hits even harder. Their sound balances caustic riffs, atmospheric layering, and Roughton’s searing vocal performances—sometimes guttural, sometimes fragile, always commanding.
The record opens with “Wrath,” a song the band describes as the culmination of the emotional fallout from their previous EP. It’s a storm of resentment, cynicism, and fear, tying together the lingering wounds left by tracks like “Doomsday” and “Babylon.” Reyes’ guitar work thrashes with frantic urgency, while Birchfield’s low-end drives the song into chaos, underscoring Roughton’s vocal eruption as she spits venom at the fragility of peace and the illusion of stability.
“Sepsis” pushes into even more personal terrain, tackling the devastation of loving someone who is ill but untreated. Written from the perspective of a friend trapped in a destructive relationship, the track captures the suffocating push-and-pull of devotion and abuse. The haunting visual companion video, which depicts Roughton battling a double of herself, underscores the song’s themes of isolation and entrapment within one’s own mind. Musically, the track balances claustrophobic heaviness with flickers of vulnerability, reflecting the impossibility of separating love from torment.
On “Orbiting,” GORE. takes a layering of atmospheric guitar delay and swirling vocal effects, mirroring the gravitational pull of toxic relationships, orbiting around destruction yet unable to break free. It’s one of the EP’s most sonically expansive moments, showing the band’s ability to craft tension through restraint as much as ferocity.
The closing track “Like You Meant It” brings the EP full circle, marrying the band’s lyrical vulnerability with some of the band's most punishing instrumentation to date. Whereas Roughton’s performance is devastating, vacillating between whispered confessions and gut-wrenching screams that feel like a final purge of grief and betrayal.
Across its four songs, IF YOU DO NOT FEAR ME… establishes GORE. as a band unafraid to bleed openly, to confront the darker corners of love, loss, and the human condition, and to do so with a level of intensity that demands attention. If A Bud That Never Blooms was about unearthing the pain beneath the surface, then this EP is about confronting what grows in its place: wrath, resilience, and the refusal to be silenced.
With IF YOU DO NOT FEAR ME…, GORE. prove they are not just one of modern metal’s most exciting new acts, but one of its most necessary voices.
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