NEW BAND GUILTLESS FEAT. MEMBERS OF INTRONAUT, GENERATION OF VIPERS, A STORM OF LIGHT & BATTLE OF MICE ANNOUNCE DEBUT EP THORNS
ARRIVING 23RD FEBRUARY VIA NEUROT RECORDINGS
A new voice steps forward to put our concerns and frustrations into words – that voice is Guiltless. Featuring members of Intronaut, Generation of Vipers, A Storm of Light, Battle of Mice, Guiltless was born from a love of experimental rock, noise rock, early industrial, sludge, and doom. Guiltless present their EP, Thorns, arriving on Neurot Recordings on the 23rd Feb with the promise of a full-length to follow.
Guiltless are; Billy Graves (Generation of Vipers, A Storm Of Light) on drums, Dan Hawkins (A Storm Of Light) on guitar and noise, Sacha Dunable (Intronaut) on bass, and Josh Graham (A Storm Of Light, Battle of Mice) on guitar, vocals, and noise. Together they present a stripped down, visceral reaction to modern life; angular yet straight to the point, self aware, surreal and occasionally sarcastic.
The first Guiltless single arrives with a video for “All We Destroy,” created by Josh Graham, who writes, “‘All We Destroy’ is the song that set the tone of the band overall and defines a large portion of this first release. It’s a stripped-down arrangement compared to the other tracks but has a clarified pummelling energy/driving force. Lyrically bleak, it feels like the current state and trajectory of our planet, and is influenced by the short story by Margaret Atwood, Time Capsule Found On The Dead Planet.”
“‘In Radiant Glow’ was the last song to fully come together on the EP. It has some more variation and complexity in the arrangement than ‘All We Destroy,’ but still carries that same kind of heft – for me – there are some Godflesh moments, some Jesus Lizard, and even a brief Slayer breakdown. Lyrically, it’s a sarcastic, surreal, post-WWIII worst-case-scenario story, and now that I think of it, subliminally influenced by both Kira Jane Buxton’s Hollow Kingdom and Jeff Vandermeer’s Borne.”
From the band’s website:
Human singularity, a third world war, scorching deserts, rising seas – it’s all coming for us. The slow grind is already in motion, pushing concrete, bodies, Teslas, skyscrapers, shacks, banks and bitcoin into a collective abyss. Piles of discarded trash will inherit the earth. It’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next. Is this the end of the world? Who knows. Who cares? Stand by with the rest of us and watch it burn. We’re all guiltless. We’re all blameless.
Guiltless creates apocalyptic soundscapes in their imaginings of the surreal return to proto-human civilisation, as well as what life might be like for the survivors of the next mass extinction event on Thorns. The opening track, “Devour Collide” is a song which addresses the decline of civilisation, leaving time and space for the earth to heal. The band shouts;
embrace the ruin
devour – collide
when the beasts dissolve
the meek revive
Elsewhere on the EP, there’s the bleak gut-reactional “All We Destroy” and the barren landscape conjured in “Dead-Eye”. The EP ends with “In Radiant Glow”, a description of the unfolding of a hostile new world, post-extinction event. The conclusion of this narrative comes with the purgation of burning everything down to the ground and starting again.
Through this cycle of destruction and rebirth, Guiltless believe that art and music can give us solace, or help us exercise our demons. Guiltless can be that cathartic release.
Thorns will be released on 12” vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital formats through Neurot Recordings on February 23rd. Find preorders for all formats and merch HERE.
All physical formats are hand stamped, spray-painted, hand numbered, with rice pasted paper elements. CD copies are made in limited edition of 100, the Cassette version is a limited edition of 50 and the vinyl version is pressed as a limited edition of 100. All formats including digital download. LP copies will be available in June.
THORNS TRACK LISTING:
1 – DEVOUR COLLIDE
2 – ALL WE DESTROY
3 – DEAD-EYE
4 – IN RADIANT GLOW