Out of a Denver basement back in 2017, FOX LAKE started splicing hardcore, hip-hop, and metal into something heavier, sharper, and louder than the standard metalcore formula. Today, that experiment lands in full force with “New World Heat,” out August 1 via MNRK Heavy, paired with a brand new video for “Real Fast.”
The band also broke down every track from the album in detail — adn you can check out their full commentary below.
The band call “Real Fast” the kind of song that doesn’t wait around. “There are songs on the album that might have more memorable hooks, bigger features, or a longer run time,” they said, “but we collectively agreed that we wanted to put out something that would hit like an uppercut and keep people curious about what the rest of the record had to offer.” Built around a sample instead of tacked on later, it’s one of the rare Fox Lake tracks where the beat became the blueprint: “we wanted to write something ‘real fast’ so the listener would never know what hit them.”
“New World Heat” pushes that idea across the record—groovy, hook-heavy riffs undercut by darker turns and blunt, jagged energy. Some songs take aim inward, like the disguised diss track in “Go 4 The Throat” or the stripped-down urgency of “Excessive Damage.” Others turn outward. “Headshot” makes it explicit, as the band spell out their stance against “people and groups that actively profit off of your lack of awareness, your lack of action, and lack of organization.” The whole album runs on a sense of immediacy, whether it’s drawn from violent PS1 game soundtracks, nu-metal weight, or the band’s own shorthand phrases—“pure adrenaline” and “all gas, no brakes.”
Fox Lake describe the process behind these songs as rebuilding from the ground up under a “new world heat” mentality. In their own words: “if you don’t change anything, then nothing is going to change. It’s a call to action, not as an indictment or a judgment but a push to stop making excuses, take control of your life and influence the world around you.”
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With the album now out, Fox Lake are taking it across the country. The “New World Heat” headline tour kicks off September 26 in Iowa City, running through October with Kaonashi, Teeth, Surfaced, Desmadre, fr3ak, and Extortionist joining across different dates.
Track by Track commentary by Nathan & Brandon
1. For The Love Of The Game
This is a perfect opening track for the record. It kind of lays out the meaning for the concept of the record. This is one of the heavier and more straightforward metal songs on the record and we love starting the album with this intensity.
2. Tough Luck
We feel like this song is one of the grooviest songs on the record. Everything about the structure and song writing in this one came out perfectly. We had the catchy hook and the bouncy verses. So when it came time to spice the song up, the beatdown breakdown felt perfect and came really naturally.
3. Freestyle
This might be the consensus favorite for everyone in the band. It was the last song we wrote for the album and we felt like we had really hit our stride in what we wanted the album to sound like. Violent PS1 games were the inspiration for the sound on this one. We had clips of those games playing on the background TV the whole time we wrote this song.
4. Go 4 The Throat
This was a fun song to write lyrically. I wanted to write a diss track to someone specific without anyone being able to know who I was talking about and without the typical f-u type insults. Instrumentally this one has an awesome hook.
5. Cold Hard Truth
Cold Hard Truth was one of the first songs we wrote in this whole record process. It ended up being a little more dark than the rest of the record, but we like that it gives the album sonic diversity. We are heavily inspired by nu-metal and this song has always felt more Korn than Limp Bizkit.
6. Real Fast
Going into the record we knew we wanted the catchy and groovy parts we’re used to writing, along with the breakdowns and heavy influences of nu-metal. But we wanted to challenge ourselves to write a faster and more “metal” song and that’s Real Fast. It came out so good that we have some regrets of not writing out the song more. But at the same time we love that the song is fast and goes by fast. This is another favorite of ours.
7. h a l f t i m e
On all our previous releases we’ve done interludes. As we were walking into this record, that was something that we felt didn’t match the urgency of the record as a whole. As the record started to take shape the idea of keeping an interlude in as a nod to our previous work and also a way to break up the record became more compelling. So I made a sample from a Jon Cleary song that I love and made a beat to go with it. It came out cooler than I was expecting haha
8. Pure Adrenaline
When we were first starting to conceptualize the core tenets of the record, we started off with a list of words and phrases that emulated how we wanted the album to feel. Two of the phrases that made their way to the top of the list were “pure adrenaline” and “all gas, no brakes.” We wanted to make something that pushed the energy past anything we’ve made in the past; faster, more intense, more visceral, more dynamic, just a cement block on the gas pedal. It was really exciting to build a song backwards, using the song title to influence the riffs instead of the other way around.
9. Headshot
While most of the songs on the album took a more personal and internal perspective, Headshot was one of the few in the tracklist that spells out in no uncertain terms where this band stands on the current political landscape. There are people and groups that actively profit off of your lack of awareness, your lack of action, and lack of organization, and they make every effort to suppress your forward mobility to maintain a position of power.
10. Savior
We wrote Savior a few years ago in Texas with Machine, a producer with a truly amazing discography – No Time to Bleed, Gutter Phenomenon, Ashes of the Wake, the list goes on. We only had four days to write and record two songs, so we didn’t have the time to overwrite or question the ideas; the first idea was the one that got recorded. It was very stressful but also a really exciting way to approach the writing process since we usually spend weeks refining the demos into a fully realized song.
11. Gut Check
Gut Check was actually the other song we wrote with Machine, although it is almost unrecognizable from the first version that left his studio with in 2022. We stripped everything we had done down to the base ingredients and rebuilt the song with the “new world heat” mentality. We were also honored to have our good friend Gary Chernyavsky from Eyes Of Salt on the song. We wanted to feature a Denver artist, and Gary has done SO much for the Denver scene in multiple bands for years. Just a great dude. Shout out to his previous band Line Brawl also.
12. Excessive Damage
This was another instance of us just wanting to cut the brakes on the song and let it go where it was going to go. We tried not to overthink it with extensive rewrites and editing, and instead just let the song be what it’s supposed to be. Excessive Damage features arguably the most concise lyrics regarding the theme of the record – if you don’t change anything, then nothing is going to change. It’s a call to action, not as an indictment or a judgment but a push to stop making excuses, take control of your life and influence the world around you. Refine your anger to a point and use it to cut the negativity out of your life.
FOX LAKE on tour:
9/26 — Iowa City, IA — Wildwood*
9/27 — Cudahy, WI — X-Ray Arcade*
9/28 — Minneapolis, MN — Skyway Theatre (Studio B)*
9/30 — Toledo, OH — Frankies**
10/1 — Columbus, OH — Summit **
10/2 — Knoxville, TN — Karns Community Center**
10/3 — Nashville, TN — 58’**
10/4 — Panama City, FL — T’s**
10/5 — New Orleans, LA — Southport Music Hall **
10/7 — Memphis, TN — Growlers**
10/8 — Oklahoma City, OK — New Spot**
10/9 — Albuquerque, NM — Rens Den (Fox Lake + Kaonashi Only)
10/11 — Yuma, AZ — Tarros Chicali (+Desmadre)
10/12 — San Diego, CA — Brick By Brick ***
10/14 — Bakersfield, CA — 1933***
10/15 — Modesto, CA — Twin Rivers Saloon***
10/16 — Eugene, OR — Wandering Goat^
10/17 — Portland, OR — High Limit Room^
10/18 — Seattle, WA — El Corazon (Funhouse) ^
10/19 — Spokane, WA — The Big Dipper (+fr3ak)
* WITH KAONASHI, +SURFACED
**WITH KAONASHI, TEETH, SURFACED
***WITH KAONASHI, DESMADRE, + fr3ak
^ WITH KAONASHI, EXTORTIONIST, + fr3ak
