French metal outfit Sheer Division — Xavier Chaquet (guitar), Simonian Jérôme (vocals, guitar, programming) and Marie Helene Rattin (bass) — formed last year in Valence, where the band’s Jérôme worked as a sound engineer at the city’s concert venue, Mistral Palace.

The French trio describe their sound a mix of of stoner rock, punk, grunge and metal paired with lyrics inspired by sci-fi and fantasy writers like Asimov, Lovecraft, Drullet — with a bit of black humor and nihilism.

Their just released EP Saalammbö, features EP title track “Saalammbö.,” a blistering and forceful ripper that sounds like a gritty synthesis of Deftones, Queens of the Stone Age and Soundgarden, anchored around enormous, arena rock friendly hooks and choruses. Play at eardrum shattering volume.

The accompanying animated video is fittingly a dystopian and apocalyptic sci-fi visual that’s captures a world on fire and in endless war, almost like ours.