SINGLE REVIEW: Dead Villains – Troll Hunter
Dead Villains announce themselves with force on their debut single ‘Troll Hunter’, a track that immediately demonstrates a band unafraid to bend genre boundaries while maintaining absolute control over atmosphere and intent. It opens in a haze of distorted noise, a tense, restless prelude that quickly erupts into bellowing, commanding instrumentation. The drums land with thick, heavy weight, grounding the track as soaring guitars carve out a widescreen presence — the kind of scale that signals a band thinking far beyond small stages.
Just as the intensity settles into a pattern, the song pivots into something more unexpected: a swirling, textured shoegaze moment with a dreamy melancholy reminiscent of Deftones’ quieter, more ethereal stretches. The interplay between sparse and dense textures creates a mood that’s melancholic yet emotionally weighted, a moment of introspection before the momentum surges again.
When the chorus hits, it lands with melodic, anthemic force — hooky, vibrant, and paced with a renewed sense of urgency. It lifts the track from brooding heaviness into something more expansive, a contrast that feels both deliberate and deeply satisfying.
The second verse shifts once more, leaning into a heavier, more EMO-tinged palette, thickening the emotional and sonic density. Yet even amid the weight, the song still finds space to breathe: a brief, stripped-back, cathartic indie section that exposes the emotional core beneath the volume.
What makes ‘Troll Hunter’ stand out is its ability to merge all these elements without ever feeling disjointed. It’s an epic blend of fuzzed-out shoegaze atmospherics, arena-ready rock, EMO’s emotional tension, metal’s commanding power, and indie’s introspective clarity — all delivered with remarkable cohesion.
The performance is just as dynamic. The vocals shift with effortless dexterity, moving between weight, melody, and vulnerability. The instrumentation responds in kind, shifting and reshaping itself with ease, always serving the emotional direction of the song rather than any single genre.
A creative, multifaceted, authentically executed debut that positions Dead Villains as a band with serious vision — and the skill to pull it off.
