SALTWOUND Bring In MUGSHOT's Ringo Waterman For The Vicious 'Pound of Flesh'

SALTWOUND have returned with "Pound of Flesh", a standalone single out now via SharpTone Records, and they brought reinforcements: Ringo Waterman of MUGSHOT guests on a track that is already the meanest thing in their catalogue.

It is the first new material since The Temptation of Pain, the Sacramento band's well-received 2024 debut full-length. Where that record established the blend, this one sharpens it. "Pound of Flesh" runs on crushing grooves and razor-sharp riffing under a general atmosphere of hostility — another step in the evolution of what the band call "Norcal Violence", their own name for the place where their deathcore and metalcore instincts meet. Waterman's appearance is not a cameo so much as an escalation; the two vocalists push each other into a genuinely merciless barrage, and both bands come off at their most vicious.

Vocalist Spencer Timmons explained where the song comes from, and it is bleaker than the title suggests.

"Everybody just wants to take a chunk out of you for themselves," he said. "Those who profess to love you want a piece to legitimize themselves by proximity, while those who hate you just want whatever they can carve out of you for the sake of spite. Some days I honestly prefer the people that hate me more; at least there's an innate honesty there."

The single lands just ahead of the road work. SALTWOUND head out on the "Death Coast '26" tour with CULTIST beginning August 21 in Phoenix, running up the West Coast through Spokane, Seattle and Portland, and finishing on home ground in Sacramento on August 28.

SALTWOUND on tour with CULTIST — "Death Coast '26":

Stream "Pound of Flesh" (feat. Ringo Waterman): All platforms

Tickets: linktr.ee/saltwound