I had never heard of or listened to Paleface Swiss before, so I was very intrigued to listen to them for the first time as I love discovering new bands!
They are a beatdown hardcore band from Zürich, Switzerland, forming back in 2017. They have released three studio albums, with the latest being Cursed, released on 3rd January 2025.
The lineup of the band is: Marc “Zelli” Zellweger on lead vocals, Yannick Lehmann on guitar and backing vocals, Tommy Lee (not to be mistaken for Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe) on bass and backing vocals, and Cassiano “Cassi” Toma on drums.
The band released three singles from the EP to tease its new year release: ‘Instrument of War’ featuring Stick to Your Guns, ‘Let Me Sleep’, and ‘Everything Is Fine’.
Their latest EP, The Wilted, was released on 2nd January 2026 with five tracks. A perfect start to the new year!
The EP opens with a voicemail message from a man, with a distraught woman crying and sobbing while listening to the message, followed by a loud gunshot sound effect indicating that she might have shot herself. And that’s just the intro! So brutal! It ends on the gunshot and we are thrown straight into the second track, ‘Withering Flower’, with such savageness and volume. This track draws early Slipknot comparisons, with blaring vocals and gritty guitars.
‘Let Me Sleep’ is explosive and has extreme guttural screams. I think it might be the heaviest track on the EP! I’m certainly not complaining; I love a lot of heaviness! It’s loud, ferocious, and intense. Each breakdown hits harder than the one before. I headbanged so much to this track that my neck started to kill, which I think is worth it!
‘Instrument of War’ features American metalcore band Stick to Your Guns. It is heavy and loud with soaring melodic choruses. Both bands demonstrate their talents in different ways in this track, and they complement each other so well. Paleface Swiss are more intense and brutal, whereas Stick to Your Guns are more melodic and hardcore. A great combination in my opinion.
The closing track, ‘Everything Is Fine’, is the slowest song on the EP, making it stand out so much more than the others, but it still has that passion and brutality within. It has so much strong emotion with a clean vocal performance. Painful words, sprawling guitars, and thickness within the rhythm section: this song hits deep! It is the perfect end to the EP.
Overall, the EP is guttural, loud, heavy, brutal, explosive, and savage, just a few words to describe it. I am definitely listening to this band more and cannot wait to see what else they release in the future.
