Levels: A Beginner's Guide

Levels are a four-piece cyber-metal band from central Arkansas who weld drum-and-bass, industrial noise, and pop hooks onto a metalcore frame. They formed in 2016, signed to SharpTone Records, and released their second album, This Will Make You Feel Again, in April 2026. If a playlist dropped you here and you want to know whether the rest of the catalog holds up, it does, and it makes more sense with a little context.

Most heavy bands pick a lane and stay in it. Levels never did. Their songs swing from blast-beat aggression to a chorus built for radio, sometimes inside the same two minutes, and they treat that whiplash as the design instead of a flaw. That instinct has pulled in millions of independent streams and put them on stages with Kittie, Motionless in White, ERRA, Beartooth, and The Devil Wears Prada. It has also made them hard to file, which is exactly why they're worth a proper introduction.

Where they came from

Levels started in the Little Rock area of central Arkansas in 2016, a long way from any recognized metal capital. That distance shaped them. With no local scene infrastructure to lean on, they built everything themselves: recording, videos, artwork, the whole visual world around the music. The first singles, "Slip" in 2016 and "Mind Blank" in 2017, were regional at best, circulating across Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee while the band opened for whoever came through.

The DIY habit stuck. Even after signing to a label, Levels still run their releases like a self-managed operation, pairing every track with its own video and visual concept. It's the kind of work rate that used to require a marketing budget, and it explains how a band from Arkansas racked up seven figures of streams before most of the metal press had noticed them.

That obsession with the visual side matters more than it might sound. Levels don't just release songs, they release a world: cinematic videos, recurring imagery, an aesthetic that ties a single from 2020 to an album track from 2026. In a streaming economy that chews through singles and forgets them by the weekend, building a consistent identity is one of the few things that makes a small band stick in anyone's memory. Levels figured that out early, and it's a big part of why their catalog feels like a story instead of a pile of uploads.

The sound: metalcore with the wires showing

Start with metalcore, then imagine someone splicing in the parts of pop and electronic music that metalcore usually keeps at arm's length. That's the Levels formula. Drop-tuned breakdowns sit next to programmed drum-and-bass fills. A screamed verse hands off to a clean, almost glossy hook. Synth textures and industrial percussion run underneath, closer to industrial metal than to a standard breakdown-and-scream template.

The band names its influences openly, and the list is telling: Billie Eilish, The Prodigy, Static-X, and The Weeknd. Two of those are not metal artists at all, and that's the point. Levels borrow the low-end weight and cyber sheen of Static-X, the rave energy of The Prodigy, and the pop songcraft of Eilish and The Weeknd, then run the whole thing through a metalcore amp. They've called themselves a "cyber/industrial metal boy band," which reads as a joke until you hear how seriously they take the hooks.

If you want reference points already in your library, the cold electronic menace lands somewhere near Rammstein and KMFDM, the theatrical dread near Marilyn Manson and In This Moment. Levels are younger, faster, and more online than any of them, but the DNA is recognizable.

The technical detail worth knowing is how they handle rhythm. Traditional metalcore builds around the guitar and the double-kick drum. Levels often build around a programmed beat first, then hang the guitars on it, which is why so many of their songs move with a jittery, electronic pulse rather than a straight metal gallop. A track like "Death Dance" leans into that drum-and-bass restlessness; "Godlike" sands the edges down toward something almost anthemic. The band treats the programming as a lead instrument, not a garnish, and that choice is the difference between a metalcore band that uses synths and a genuinely electronic-metal act. Levels are firmly the second thing.

The discography, in order

The early singles and the 2018 debut

After "Slip" and "Mind Blank" built a small regional following, Levels released their self-titled debut album on August 15, 2018, through Famined Records. It collected the early singles alongside newer tracks like "Tension," "Shallow," and "Bury," and leaned harder on the metalcore and post-hardcore side of their sound than on the electronics that would define them later. The record was mixed and mastered by Lance Prenc, an engineer better known for his work with Void of Vision and Polaris, which placed Levels in good company on the modern metalcore circuit. The album did its job: it moved them from a local name to a band with national reach, thin as that reach still was.

The turn toward cyber-metal (2019–2021)

The next stretch is where Levels became Levels. The 2019 single "Choke" started pulling drum-and-bass rhythms and nu-metal groove into the mix. "Vultures" followed in 2020, recorded remotely during the touring shutdown, and pushed further into synthesizers and industrial beats. In 2021 they released "Clones" and "Sirens," two tracks that fully committed to the cyber aesthetic, melodic vocals and all.

None of these were album singles. They were standalone releases, each with its own video, and together they worked as a public rebuild of the band's identity in real time. By the end of 2021, the metalcore group from 2018 sounded like a different act.

PULSE and the SharpTone signing

That reinvention got them a deal. Levels signed to SharpTone Records, the independent metal label, and the "PULSE" single arrived in October 2023, with the full PULSE EP following in early 2024. It was the clearest statement of the new sound yet: drop-tuned guitars, breakbeats, and cyber-industrial synths, held together by hooks sharp enough to survive the chaos. The EP cleared a million streams and turned "emerging Arkansas band" into "band people are actually watching." `[VERIFY: whether SharpTone dates the PULSE EP to 2023 or 2024 — the title single is late 2023, the EP early 2024]`

This Will Make You Feel Again (2026)

This Will Make You Feel Again, released April 10, 2026 on SharpTone, is the payoff. It's their second full-length and the first to sound like the band knew exactly what it was going for. The lead tracks, the "Fume" and "Death Dance" double single and the opener "Blue Heaven," push the electronic and pop instincts to the front without losing the heaviness underneath. Deeper cuts like "Godlike," "Black Dove," and "Covert One" fill in the range, from stadium-sized hooks to some of the heaviest material the band has recorded.

The reviews landed where the band wanted them. Outlets including Dead Rhetoric, Distorted Sound, and The Razor's Edge covered the release, and the recurring verdict was that Levels had made their strongest record while keeping the sound "familiar yet fresh." One theme runs through the coverage: the album is rooted in metalcore and industrial, but its willingness to reach into pop and electronic music is what makes it stand out in a crowded year. Ten years in, that's a rare thing for a heavy band to pull off without sounding like it's chasing a trend.

The current lineup

Today Levels are a quartet: Kolby Carignan on vocals, Jager Felice on guitar, Jacob Hubbard on bass, and Dalton Kennerly on drums. Hubbard and Kennerly have been anchors since the early years; the lineup has shifted around them as the sound evolved. The current four-piece is the one that made This Will Make You Feel Again and has carried it across a heavy 2026 touring schedule, from small clubs to Hard Rock Cafe stages, still mostly on their own steam.

Where Levels fit

Levels sit at a crossroads a lot of younger heavy bands are circling but few commit to fully. The electronic-metal fusion has precedent, from Rammstein and KMFDM on the industrial side to Static-X's cyber-metal crunch, and the pop-forward heaviness has cousins in Motionless in White and In This Moment. What sets Levels apart is how little they hedge. They'll drop a genuine pop chorus into a breakdown-heavy song and dare you to call it a compromise.

If your taste runs to the modern, groove-driven end of heavy music, Slipknot, Disturbed, or Five Finger Death Punch, Levels will feel familiar in weight but stranger in shape. That strangeness is the appeal. They're one of the more convincing arguments that metalcore still has unexplored corners, ten years into a scene plenty of people keep calling exhausted.

Where to start

Come in through the new record. "Blue Heaven" is the cleanest introduction to how the melodic and heavy sides fit together, and the "Fume" / "Death Dance" pairing shows the band at full aggression. If you want to hear the turn that made them, go back to the PULSE EP and its title track, then "Godlike" and "Black Dove" off This Will Make You Feel Again for the cyber-metal end pushed to its limit.

You can dig into the full discography, tour dates, and related bands on the Levels page at The Band Index.

Common questions

Are Levels a metalcore band? At the root, yes, but that's only half the picture. The foundation is metalcore, and the electronics, drum-and-bass rhythms, and pop hooks stacked on top are what make them their own thing. Calling them straight metalcore undersells how far they push into industrial and electronic territory.

Where are Levels from? Central Arkansas, in the Little Rock area. They formed there in 2016 and built their following without a local metal scene to lean on.

Is Levels signed to a label? Yes. They signed to the independent metal label SharpTone Records, which released the PULSE EP and the 2026 album This Will Make You Feel Again.

What should I listen to first? Start with "Blue Heaven" for the balance of melody and weight, then the "Fume" / "Death Dance" pairing for the aggressive side. The PULSE EP is the best snapshot of the sound that got them signed.

The short version

Levels are an Arkansas four-piece who spent a decade turning metalcore into something part industrial, part pop, and entirely their own. They built it DIY, signed to SharpTone on the strength of a reinvention, and delivered their best record so far in 2026. If you like your heavy music with the wires showing, they're one of the most interesting bands in the genre right now.