Twenty years deep into their catalogue, the Toronto pack sound leaner, meaner and more locked-in than ever on album eight…

Words by Felix Bartlett | 03 Aug, 2026

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Cancer Bats have never been a band overly concerned with reinvention. What they’ve always traded in is conviction, that gnarled, hardcore-via-southern-rock snarl that’s carried them through eight albums and two decades without so much as a wobble. Give Me Dirt doesn’t change that formula so much as sharpen it, trading polish for grit and coming out the other side sounding hungrier than bands half their age.

The clue is in the title. Where past records have leaned into chaos and combustion, this one’s rooted in something more elemental, inspired, reportedly, by frontman Liam Cormier’s time spent off-grid in rural Nova Scotia. That back-to-basics instinct suits them. Opener World Wild Fire Death Race doesn’t waste a second on introductions, launching straight into a riff that sounds like it’s been dragged out of the earth itself, with Converge man Kurt Ballou’s production giving everything an extra layer of grime that suits Cancer Bats down to the ground.

That partnership is arguably the record’s masterstroke. Ballou doesn’t sand down a single edge; if anything, guitarist Jaz Landry’s tone sounds nastier and more feral than it has in years, particularly on the chugging, low-slung Don’t Trip and the positively unhinged Speed Wizard. Ocean Crash slows the pace without losing any menace, all tidal builds and guttural payoffs, while the title track and Stay Stuck feel like statements of intent, proof there’s still plenty of fight left in this band.

Cormier, unsurprisingly, remains the record’s beating heart. He’s not reaching for new tricks here, but his bark carries the same restless urgency it always has, whether he’s trading vocals with Death By Stereo’s Efrem Schulz on the gang-vocal blowout Fools Like You or barrelling through Long Tooth like a man twice as young. It’s not a subtle instrument, but it doesn’t need to be; it’s the engine the whole band runs on.

If Give Me Dirt has a flaw, it’s that it plays things close to the chest structurally, and anyone hoping for a curveball won’t find one here. But that misses the point slightly. This is a band who know exactly what they do well, and who’ve simply found a rougher, more committed way of doing it. Nothing overstays its welcome, nothing feels phoned in, and by the time closer Positive Gold rattles to a stop, it’s hard to argue Cancer Bats haven’t quietly delivered one of the strongest records of their career.

Verdict: 💀💀💀💀

For Fans Of: Every Time I Die, Turnstile, Fucked Up

Give Me Dirt is released on August 7 via Marshall.