The Quality of Mercury takes us to 'Heaven's Gate', teasing sophomore album 'The Voyager'

September 24, 2025

Alt-rock artist The Quality of Mercury presents his latest high-paced trip with 'Heaven's Gate', the latest gem revealed from his forthcoming sophomore album 'The Voyager'. Nine years after releasing his debut 'Transmission' album, he is back with new music that is both anthemic and accessible, cinematic and catchy - a perfect blend of muscle and melody.

'Heaven's Gate' shines with an unexpected lift balancing the expansive feel of space-rock with vibrant pop elements. A story about longing to transcend into enlightenment, the upbeat pulse gives it a sense of momentum, like you’re cruising through the stars with the windows down.

The Quality of Mercury is Pennsylvania-based artist Jeremiah Rouse, who handles everything from writing and performing to engineering. This groovesome, graceful and grand music with space-rock atmospherics speaks to our deep need for connection, both human and spiritual. His ongoing search for meaning is woven into songs that range from bursts of excitement to moments of quiet reflection.

"'Heaven’s Gate' is inspired by the real-life cult of the same name, but it’s not a song about tragedy; it’s a song about longing. I saw myself in their story: the endless search for something beyond this world, the gaze fixed on the stars, waiting for a sign, a savior, an escape," says Jeremiah Rouse.

"I’ve spent so much of my life looking up, hoping for divine intervention, for something greater to lift me out of the weight of this world. Whether that’s God, aliens, or something unnamed, 'Heaven’s Gate' is about the hope that there is something out there. Something bigger, kinder, more meaningful than what we know here on Earth. This isn’t a song about giving up. It’s about believing there’s more."

'The Voyager' is an adventurous journey, each track offering a different terrain of feeling: exhilaration, anxiety, longing, and introspection. Lead track 'Ganymede' is an upbeat cinematic journey that reflects the album’s overarching themes of distance, discovery, and transformation, this song is about finding love and losing it, fulfilling Rouse's mission of exploring emotion and texture across vast sonic terrain.

Rouse's recorded works serve as a bridge to his audience —a suitably distant medium, given his songs about receiving transmissions emanating from the other side of the universe and epic, intergalactic voyages. For all its otherworldly sound and association with vastness and space, the intensity and intellect, depth and profound insight found here is a journey into the artist’s own inner space.

Influenced by such iconic bands as Hum, Failure, Starflyer 59, and Sunny Day Real Estate, The Quality of Mercury creates a vast, immersive world, each track built as a sonic landscape - grand in scope yet meticulously detailed. The goal is simple but ambitious: to create music that reveals something new with every listen. Tiny flourishes, subtle swells, and sound elements crossing the stereo field are placed with obsessive precision, often blooming unexpectedly or popping out at just the right moment. Every detail matters, perhaps to a fault, but that’s part of the craft.

With a background in film production and a lifelong love of sci-fi cinema, Jeremiah approaches songwriting with a distinctly visual mindset. Every song is imagined like a scene from a movie — framed, lit, and paced as though it were a short film. That cinematic sensibility, combined with a meticulous approach to sound design, results in music that’s as emotionally resonant as it is sonically rich.

'Heaven's Gate' is out now, available from fine music platforms, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. The full album 'The Voyager', which can already be pre-ordered via Bandcamp, will be released on October 24.

HEAVEN'S GATE (ft. Members of MUNICIPAL WASTE, CANNIBAL CORPSE, etc.) Releases New Album, 'Tales From a Blistering Paradise'

April 18, 2025

Hardcore punk outfit HEAVEN'S GATE is now releasing its brand new full-length, 'Tales From a Blistering Paradise,' today, April 18! The album is now available worldwide digitally as well as vinyl via Beach Impediment and CD and cassette via To Live A Lie. Listen and order HERE.

The cover artwork was created by Steak Mountain aka/Christopher Norris and can be found below along with the tracklisting.

When most people think of Florida, they might picture retirement villages with seniors playing pickleball, luxurious Lamborghinis cruising to the beach, or leather-skinned swamp folks with a passion for NASCAR. However, Florida is also home to some of the fiercest punk bands imaginable. HEAVEN'S GATE is one such band. Instead of exuding the raw grime of ASSÜCK, HEAVEN'S GATE channels their rage into a powerful, concise, blast-beating behemoth. With members of bands that will wow you, the band really wants their music to speak for itself, so we won’t mention that they have the ranks of CANNIBAL CORPSE, MUNICIPAL WASTE, REVERSAL OF MAN, or WARTHOG members aboard. Their riffs are infectious in the way that bands like BIB and BLOODKROW BUTCHER haunt you but more in a way if you spit-shined the sound and added a good measure of blast beats to put a smile on the face of those who worship at the altar of SPAZZ, INFEST, Dystopia or DRI. This album fills so many wants in an album while not being derivative or really being a copy of any related bands. Without boring you more with a description, do yourself a favor and check out HEAVEN’S GATE and you won’t be disappointed.

Lineup: Vocals: Tony Foresta

Guitar: Mike Goo

Bass: Jeff Howe

Drums: Paul Mazurkiewicz

Album credits:

Recorded by Ryan Boesch at Candor Studios

Additional Tracking by Eric Payne

Mixed by Will Killingsworth

Mastered by Joel Grind

Cover Artwork: Steak Mountain aka/Christopher Norris

Heavy // Hitter Drop "Heaven's Gate" Video — WATCH // EP Out NOW

November 9, 2024

Orlando, Florida juggernauts HEAVY//HITTER — Austin Hayes [vocals], Dane Loeprich [guitar], Chris Perez [bass], and Josh Archeval [drums] —dropped their new EP, Moments of Misery, November 8, via Blue Grape Music. Get it here.

The band has also shared the video for "Heaven's Gate." Watch it below.

The high impact, black and white performance video, courtesy of Lawnchair Youth, will leave you wanting to to fight your way to the front of the pit at the next Heavy // Hitter show in your town.

"This song is about living your life the way you think is right because you're trying to get to your own personal gateway of heaven," says Hayes. "So, you're going to do anything you can to reach that point and feel like you're worthy of this prize at the end. Everybody wants a slice of heaven."

HEAVY//HITTER will be touring throughout the fall, with headline dates and a trek in support of Carnifex and Cryptopsy on deck. All confirmed dates are below.

HEAVY//HITTER are, have always been, and always will be... unabashedly and undeniably real.

Since 2019, the band have buzzed as an underground upstart. They bulldozed a path with the Street Violence EP in 2021. They picked up plugs from Lambgoat, Lawnchair Youth, and more. Between packing houses live, they caught the attention of Blue Grape Music and signed to the label.

Unwavering drive, hustle, and a committed grind brought them to this point.

"Before I started this band, I quit music for five years," says Austin. "I tried to go to college. I was a general manager at Domino's Pizza. I did construction. Nothing was fulfilling, so I got back into music and started HEAVY//HITTER  with Dane. I just never gave up on this band. We always want more, and we’re not going to stop."

The band decamped to Los Angeles where they recorded Moments of Misery with producer Austin Coupe. Inspired by the likes of Suicide Silence, Knocked Loose, and Carnifex, they refined an "OG deathcore sound with newer hardcore and metalcore elements," according to the fontman.

Ultimately, HEAVY//HITTER hold nothing back.

"When you listen to us, I hope you feel the emotion we put into the record. That's what music is about. We're not a machine. We're human and honest," Hayes shares.

What more could you want from a band?

HEAVY//HITTER ON TOUR:
HEADLINE DATES:
11/8 — Augusta, GA — Grantski Records
11/14 — Orlando, FL — Will's Pub (Hometown Release Show)

ABOUT BLUE GRAPE MUSIC:
In 2022, industry veterans David Rath and Cees Wessels formed Blue Grape Music. The name will be familiar to rock music fans, as it was the merchandise company also launched by Wessels, who founded the venerable and esteemed record label Roadrunner Records in the '80s. Roadrunner earned a reputation as an iconic label that turned hard rock and metal acts into household names for several decades under Wessels' tutelage. Rath spent 21 years in the A&R department at Roadrunner, working on albums by a variety of RIAA-certified and culturally important acts, including but not limited to Slipknot, Korn, Turnstile, Gojira, Coheed and Cambria, White Reaper, Slash, Trivium, Dream Theater, and more. When the label changed management and ownership, Rath guided the company and oversaw the signings of bands like Young the Giant and Vance Joy. Ultimately, the Blue Grape executive team is powered by experience and a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-your-hands-dirty, by-any-means-necessary work ethic. Blue Grape's inaugural signing was the two-time Grammy nominee Code Orange and since then, the label has gone on to sign San Francisco punks Spiritual Cramp, hardcore heavyweights GEL, and Baltimore sludge slingers GASKET, with several new signing announcements expected to be announced this year. Blue Grape is distributed globally by The Orchard.

True Crime Duo SKYND Share "Heaven's Gate" Video

March 7, 2024

THE TRACK, REFERENCING THE NOTORIOUS CULT, CONCLUDES CHAPTER V

Industrial-tinged and true crime-inspired electronic duo SKYND is the dark creative outlet and the alter ego of its lead singer, Skynd, and producer and multi-instrumentalist Father. They are known for taking inspiration from inexplicable and brutal criminal cases and the mystery surrounding unsolved deaths, and transforming them into songs to remind us of the darkness within the human psyche, while taking great care to avoid any glorification.

Small clusters of songs have been released as EPs, titled in numbered chapters.

Today, SKYND conclude Chapter V with the release of "Heaven's Gate."

Watch the video below. Listen via your platform of choice here.

Heaven's Gate was a religious group, commonly regarded as a cult, that formed in 1974, and is most well known for one of the world's largest mass suicides of its members in March 1997. Learn more here.

Skynd ponders, "What personality and psychological factors are at play in people who readily submit their lives and wills to cult leaders such as Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite? How can they not see these people are barking mad? The madness of the cult leader is usually not apparent when the person first joins."

Skynd continues, "This is the second case I have written about a cult. Two cults that cannot be compared with each other and yet they have some (or a lot of) parallels. As incredible and bizarre as Heaven's Gate seems, there are still cults today that brainwash their followers. The whole concept of cults fascinates me because it's always the same thing. Usually, the takeover of your freedom, your thoughts, etc. is a very gradual process. And the taking away of a little piece of your freedom or identity is not seen as a big deal. It's just a small sacrifice for a good cause. The trouble is... those small sacrifices add up until they’re a huge pile of sacrifices. But by then you're so indoctrinated into the group that it really doesn't matter to you that much. You've bought into the group's message and mission. The group is your 'family' now. It’s their influence that drives you rather than your own inner voice of reason."

Skynd finishes, "Marshall Applewhite and Bonnie Nettles (known as Do and Ti) were able to appeal to members by reaching out to people disillusioned with society and religious spaces. Heaven's Gate first ran into a major problem in 1985, one that confronts many 'prophetic' religious leaders, cult or otherwise. When Ti passed away in 1985 due to liver cancer, her body did not ascend per Heaven's Gate's theology. So, Do had to adapt his teachings to this observable contradiction of the cult's beliefs. I personally blame Marshall for continuing anyway, even though he knew it was a total lie."

Long-time collaborator and accomplished film maker PR Brown, who directed the song's official video comments, "Creating the video for 'Heaven's Gate' posed a unique challenge. How do we show the horror of 39 people who died because a man convinced them that they would all transform into eternal alien beings? We wanted to reveal Marshall Applewhite as an ominous religious figure. Then, as the video progresses, we wanted to show that it was all just a grift from a mentally unstable man. Skynd masterfully narrates us through the multiple layers, like peeling back layers of an onion, to get us to the ultimate truth."

SKYND are currently lining up festival appearances for 2024, with slots already confirmed at Graspop, With Full Force, Tons Of Rock, and Motorcultor. For a full list of SKYND performances, visit here.

ABOUT SKYND:
We all conceal something behind the earthly façade we show to the world. Maybe it's an unspoken fetish. Perhaps it's a covetous urge. Or it could just be the kind of darkness we acknowledge in passing —but don't dare reference out loud. SKYND peel back those layers and uncover what lurks beneath in all of its painful glory. The industrialized gothic electronic duo — Skynd [lead vocals] and "Father" [producer, multi-instrumentalist] — exorcize beauty by bloodletting as they mine some of history’s most baffling, bizarre, and brutal crimes across their EPs.

SKYND released Chapter I in 2018, which included Korn's Jonathan Davis as a special guest on "Gary Heidnik." Chapter II followed in 2019. Chapter III comprised "Chris Watts," "Michelle Carter," and "Columbine," the latter featuring a guest spot from noted hip-hop artist Bill $aber. Chapter IV focussed on "Armin Meiwes," "John Wayne Gacy," and "Edmund Kemper."

Each chapter continues SKYND's exploration of the darkest and most disturbing parts of the human psyche, following their belief that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Chapter V began in August 2023 with "Robert Hansen" and continued with "Bianca Devins," named more unusually for the victim. "Heaven's Gate" is their latest release and concludes this chapter.

To date, SKYND's music has racked up 30.5 million streams on their Spotify channel alone, their official YouTube channel has amassed over 45 million views.