For anyone who heard Portland, Oregon, four-piece Diesto‘s 2010 sophomore full-length, High as the Sun (review here), the new track “Arrows” is going to be something of a culture shock. Sure, that album had its moments of righteously heavy crunch — “Waiting for the Fall” comes immediately to mind, but there were others — but at 4:40, “Arrows” is two minutes-plus shorter than everything the last record had to offer, and it uses its time to altogether more extreme ends, casting off some of the cleaner incantations in favor of abrasive yells set to churning riffs and impressively dueling modern solos.

Whether it’s a side-step or evident of a lasting shift in Diesto‘s approach will have to wait for their next LP to be seen — that is, they’re by no means limited to one sonic idea and they seem like a creative enough outfit to know it — but the tight, effective lurch of “Arrows” features on a new Eolian Empire compilation. Dubbed Keep Our Heads: Heavy Vibes from Portland, Oregon, it brings together a whopping 26 bands — Norska, Crag Dweller, Gaytheist, Lord Dying, Towers, and so on — to showcase not only the heaviness that’s thriving in Portland’s underground, but the many different faces that heaviness shows.

In that effort, few bands sum up the idea as well as Diesto, who both crawl and blast within the relatively brief span of “Arrows.” Doubtless Eolian Empire — helmed now by members of the also-included Rabbits (they of the creative postage) — had that in mind in having them take part in Keep Our Heads, but they’re just one of many in the impressive assemblage. The full tracklisting and more info on the release can be found under the player below. Keep Our Heads: Heavy Vibes from Portland, Oregon is due out on a limited tape run May 1.

Please enjoy “Arrows,” by Diesto:

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