Armitage doesn’t just play metalcore on their blistering new single “Victory or Defeat.” They live it. The band offers a bold testament to resilience and reckoning that needs to be felt. Coming with their EP Robusuta, out March 29th, 2025, this is a no-prisoners look into the storm they are about to drop.
From the opening blow of Jason Walker’s thundering drums, “Victory or Defeat” gets you by the collar and doesn’t let go. Guitarist Dan Turnquist offers riffage sharp enough to carve through the chaos and propulsive enough to keep up with it, cutting through the song with deadly precision. Bassist Mark Holderfield weighs the song with his grubby low-end pulse that snarls just below the surface, lending substantial weight to each breakdown. And then there’s Jesse’s throat, and his singing bursts forth like a war cry from the bowels of the mix. It’s not that history must be seen as only a matter of triumph and collapse, and it’s that it looks like the crossroads where those futures competed. Armitage pulls the reader or listener into that tension. What will you select when you’re pushed to the brink?
“Victory or Defeat” is more technically precise or genre-loyal than it is, but it’s got a heart beating under all that fury. You can hear the sweat and the intent in every snare hit, every scream, every winding guitar lead. This group obviously knows their craft, but, more crucially, they know their voice. And it roars.
For a band that began when two coworkers linked up, the trajectory of this band, like Armitage, now says anything but. “Victory or Defeat” is a mission statement. Attention, Armitage has arrived, and they mean business.